Pi 

13 

g 
I 


1646—1896. 


The  First  Church  of  Christ, 

(CONGREGATIONAL,) 

OLD  SAYBROOK,  CONN. 


THE   CELEBRATION 


— OF  THE — 


Two  Hundred  and   Fiftieth   Anniversary, 

WEDNESDAY,  JULY   i,   1896. 


HISTORICAL    REVIEW 


ADDRESSES. 


MIDDLETOWN,   CONN.  : 

J.   S.   STEWART,   PRINTER    AND   BOOKBINDER. 
I896. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 

CHURCH,  CHAPEL  AND  PARSONAGE  (Illus.),  -  ii. 

TITLE,      -  iii. 

INDEX,  v. 

PREFATORY  NOTE,  -  vii. 

ORDER  OF  EXERCISES,  ix. 

ADDRESS  OF  WELCOME,  -  xi. 

MINISTERS  OF  THE  CHURCH,  -  xiii. 

DEACONS  OF  THE  CHURCH,  -    xiii. 

HISTORY,  CHESEBROUGH,  i 

THE  THIRD  MEETING-HOUSE  (Illus.),  32 

NOTES,  72 
SALUTATIONS  OF  FIRST  CHURCH,  HARTFORD — L/AMSON,        81 

THE  FOUNDERS — CHAPMAN,   -  83 

FIRST  CHURCH  OF  NORWICH — NORTHROP,      .  88 

CONNECTICUT  EMIGRATION  TO  OHIO — BUSHNELL,  97 

FIRST  CHURCH  OF  OLD  L/YME — SHIRLEY,  -      105 

YALE  UNIVERSITY — DWIGHT,  -      109 

THE  CHURCH  IN  CENTERBROOK — GRISWOLD,  -      116 

THE  FIRST  CHURCH  OF  WESTBROOK — BAILEY,  120 
THE  MINISTRIES  OF  REV.  WILLIAM  HART  AND  REV. 

FREDERICK  W.  HOTCHKISS — SHEFFIELD,  125 

GREETINGS  OF  AN  EX-PASTOR — SEXTON,  130 

CLOSING  HYMN — MRS.  BRADLEY,   -        -  132 


PREFATORY  NOTE. 


At  the  Annual  Business  Meeting  of  the  Church,  December 
17,  1895,  it  was  voted  that  the  Church  will  observe  in  proper 
manner  the  completion  of  its  two  hundred  and  fiftieth  year  of 
organized  existence,  at  some  time  during  the  coming  summer. 

Three  committees  were  constituted,  to  have  in  charge  the 
matters  connected  with  the  observance. 

I. 

COMMITTEE   ON   PUBLIC   EXERCISES   AND   PUBLICATION. 

Rev.  E.  E.  Bacon,  Dea.  O.  H.  Kirtland,  Dea.  R.  C.  Shepard, 
Mr.  G.  A.  Bushnell,  Dea.  Robert  Chapman,  Mrs.  Lucy  B. 
Hayden,  Mrs.  Emeline  Dowd,  Mrs.  Lydia  Lord. 

II. 

COMMITTEE  ON    INVITATIONS,    DECORATION    AND   ENTERTAIN- 
MENT. 

Dea.  T.  C.  Acton,  Jr.,  Mrs.  T.  C.  Acton,  Mr.  G.  W.  Deni- 
son,  Mrs.  G.  W.  Denison,  Mr.  J.  B.  Holman,  Mrs.  J.  B. 
Holman,  Mrs.  Mary  B.  Burger,  Mrs.  Mary  W.  Granniss,  Mrs. 
Mary  E.  Pratt,  Messrs.  Frank  B.  Nelson,  Robert  A.  Chalker, 
J.  Morgan  Lord. 

III. 

COMMITTEE   ON   FINANCE. 

Mr.  J.  L.  Hayden,  Mr.  W.  R.  Bushnell,  Mr.  F.  T.  Bradley, 
Mr.  D.  A.  Kellogg. 

The  exact  date  of  the  organization  of  this  church  being 
unknown,  July  ist  was  chosen  for  the  anniversary  observance, 


Vlll. 

because  of  certain  general  considerations  of  advantage  and  of 
its  known  approximation,  meanwhile,  to  the  precise  date. 
All  nature  conspired,  earth,  air  and  sky,  to  fashion  the  day  to 
ideal  beauty.  The  church  building  was  just  from  the  hands 
of  the  painters  and  fresco  workers.  The  laying  of  new  carpets 
was  completed  only  the  night  before.  The  decorations — in 
white,  with  ferns  and  oak  leaves— were  simple,  but  exquisite. 
The  large  and  appreciative  audiences,  and  the  varied  contri- 
butions of  distinguished  talent,  gave  to  the  services  a  marked 
and  highly  enjoyable  character. 

The  plan  of  the  printed  program  was  realized  completely, 
save  in  one  particular.  The  Rev.  John  E.  Bushnell,  of  New 
York— a  son  of  this  church,  and  lineal  descendant  of  Dea. 
Francis  Bushnell,  the  second  deacon  of  the  church  —  on 
account  of  temporary  disablement,  was  not  present.  His 
place  was  most  satisfactorily  supplied  by  the  Rev.  Thomas  A. 
Emerson,  of  Clinton.  The  pastor,  Rev.  Edward  Everett 
Bacon,  presided  at  the  exercises. 

The  particular  relations  of  the  several  speakers  to  the 
occasion  are  briefly  indicated  in  the  proper  places.  It  may  be 
added,  in  respect  to  those  who  conducted  the  devotional 
services  of  the  morning,  that  the  Rev.  Frank  R.  Shipman,  of 
Andover,  Mass.,  and  the  Rev.  Dr.  Llewellyn  Pratt,  of  Norwich, 
Conn.,  are  respectively  descendants  of  Lieut.  Thomas  Leffing- 
well  and  Lieut.  William  Pratt,  both  among  the  Founders  of 
the  church.  The  Rev.  William  H.  Moore,  who  offered  the 
closing  prayer  of  the  afternoon,  is  an  honored  son  of  the 
church  of  Westbrook  ;  and  Mrs.  F.  T.  Bradley,  the  writer  of 
the  original  hymn,  holds  a  place  of  esteem  in  the  membership 
of  to-day.  The  program  was  as  follows  : 


IX. 


1646—1896. 
THE  FIRST  CHURCH  OF  CHRIST, 

(CONGREGATIONAL,) 
OLD  SAYBROOK,   CONN. 

The  Celebration  of  the  Two  Hundred  and  Fiftieth  Anniversary, 

WEDNESDAY,  JULY  r,  i8qt>. 


FORENOON  SERVICES— 9:45  A.  M. 


DOXOLOGY. 

Invocation.     (With  the  Lord's  Prayer). 

^Scripture  Reading.  REV.  FRANK  R.  SHIPMAN 

Hymn — "  O  God,  beneath  thy  guiding  hand." 

Prayer.  REV.  LEWELLYN  PRATT,  D.  D. 

Address  of  Welcome.       -       REV.  EDWARD  EVERETT  BACON 

Hymn—"  'Tis  by  thy  strength." 

Historical  Address.        REV.  AMOS  S.  CHESEBROUGH,  D.  D. 

The  Salutations  of  the  First  Church  of  Christ,  Hartford. 

REV.  CHAS.  M.  LAMSON,  D.  D. 
Hymn — "  Mighty  God,  while  angels  bless  thee." 

BENEDICTION. 

RECESS   FOR   LUNCH. 
*Psalm  xliv,  1-3;  xlviii,  9-14;  Ixxxvii,  1-6. 


X. 

AFTERNOON  SERVICES-i:45  P.  M. 

Hymn — "  Rise,  O  my  soul." 

Prayer.  REV.  JOHN  E.  BUSHNELL 

Anthem— "  Ye  shall  dwell  in  the  land." 

Address — The  Founders,  1646.    REV.  EDWARD  M.  CHAPMAN 

Address — The  First  Church  of  Norwich,  1660. 

REV.  CHAS.  A.  NORTHROP 
Address — Connecticut  Emigration  to  Ohio,  and  its  Results. 

HON.  ASA  S.  BUSHNELL,  GOVERNOR  OF  OHIO 
Address — The  First  Church  of  Old  L,yme,  1693.     - 

REV.  ARTHUR  SHIRLEY 
Hymn — "  A  mighty  fortress  is  our  God." 
Address — Yale  University,  1702. 

PRES.  TIMOTHY  DWIGHT,  D.  D. 
Address — The  Church  in  Centerbrook,  1725. 

DEA.  EDGAR  W.  GRISWOLD 
Address — The  First  Church  of  Westbrook,  1726.    - 

REV.  GURDON  F.  BAILEY 

Address — The   Ministries  of  Rev.    William   Hart  and 
Rev.  Frederick  W.  Hotchkiss,   1736-1844. 

MR.  JAMES  R.  SHEFFIELD 
Letter — Greetings  of  an  Ex-Pastor,  1881-1884. 

REV.  WILSON  D.  SEXTON 

Prayer.    -  REV.  WILLIAM  H.  MOORE 

*Hymn.    (Original).     MRS.  F.  T.  BRADLEY. 


*  On  last  page  of  this  volume. 


XI. 


ADDRESS   OF  WELCOME. 


REV.  EDWARD  EVERETT  BACON. 


Two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  sometime  during  the 
tsummer — the  exact  date  is  not  known — this  First  Church  of 
Christ  was  organized  and  established  on  this  soil.  It  was  a 
church  organized  on  the  ground  of  that  broad  yet  specific  and 
•explicit  polity  which  is  summarized  in  the  words  of  Our  I^ord 
to  his  disciples — (Matt,  xxiii.  :  8.)  "One  is  your  Master, 
even  Christ,  and  all  ye  are  brethren." 

There  is  so  much  that  is  of  interest,  with  which  this  day  is 
to  be  filled,  that  my  part  in  the  exercises  will  of  necessity  be 
very  brief.  To  use  the  familiar  phrase  of  the  day,  I  am  only 
to  "{press  the  button." 

It  devolves  upon  me  to  express  in  behalf  of  this  old  church 
— that  calls  you  all  her  descendants  to-day — the  hearty  wel- 
come with  which  she  greets  children  and  children's  children 
in  the  ancestral  home. 

We  are  glad  to  see  you  here,  and  to  have  you  look  upon 
this  church  which  has  mothered  you  and  your  ancestors  unto 
many  generations.  We  trust  that  as  you  look  upon  the 
church,  and  your  minds  are  led  over  the  review  of  her  history 
and  her  work,  that  you  will  be  constrained  to  say  that  she  has 
not  lived  in  vain,  and  that  she  has  grown  old  gracefully  ;  that 
with  her  the  leaf  has  not  withered  ;  and  that  the  ' '  hoary  head 
is  a  crown  of  glory. ' ' 


Xll. 

In  the  preparations  for  this  observance  it  was  deemed  best 
on  the  whole  to  limit  the  exercises  to  a  single  day.  Suck 
limitation  of  time,  however,  placed  us  under  somewhat  severe 
restrictions  in  the  framing  of  our  conception  of  a  program,  and 
compelled  the  exclusion  of  many  things  which  ^t  first  thought 
might  seem  most  naturally  to  claim  a  place  here. 

In  general,  we  may  say  that  the  governing  idea  has  been  to- 
have  the  Church  represented  in  a  few  of  the  larger  relations  of 
her  life — e.  g.,  her  founding  ;  her  immediate  ecclesiastical  out- 
growths ;  etc.* 

So  far  as  individuals  or  families  are  brought  into  view,  it  is. 
not  as  of  primary  intent,  but  rather  as  incidental  to  the 
governing  purpose. 

I  think  that  the  general  conception  of  the  program — which 
is  in  your  hands— will  thus  be  clear  to  you,  and  we  trust  that 
the  day  will  be  one  ever  to  be  remembered  with  delight  by 
you  all. 


*This  idea  is  rather  waived  for  the  moment  in  the  case  of  Gov.  Bushnell'sr 
address.  The  Governor  had  early  signified  his  hope  and  intention  to  be  present 
at  the  Anniversary.  It  was  felt  that  some  expression  from  him  on  the  occasion 
would  be  of  peculiar  interest,  and  in  response  to  invitation,  he  was  so  kind  as  to*, 
enrich  the  exercises  with  this  paper. 


XIII. 


MINISTERS  OF  THE  CHURCH. 


Began.  Resigned.        Died.  Aged. 

n.    JAMES  FITCH,  c.                           1646.  1660.     1702.  80. 

2.  JEREMIAH  PECK.  1660.  1665.  1699.  76. 

..3.  THOMAS  BUCKINGHAM,  c.  1665.  1709.  63. 

.4.  AZARIAH  MATHER,  c.  1709.  1732.  173^.  52. 

5.  WILLIAM  HART,  c.  1736.  1784.  71. 

<6.  FREDERICK  WM.  HOTCHKISS,  c.  1783.  1844.  81. 

7.  ETHAN  BARROWS  CRANE,  c.  1838.  1851.  1892.  80. 

"8.  JAMES  BEATTIE.  1851.  1852.  1885.  82. 

9.     SALMON  McCALL,  c.                    1853.  1871.     1889.  63. 

10.  FRANCIS N.  ZABRISKIE,  D.  D.,  c.  1871.  1876.     1891.  59. 

11.  RICHARD  BOWERS  THURSTON.    1876.  1881.     1895.  76. 

12.  WILSON  DAVIDSON  SEXTON,  c.  1881.  1884. 

13.  BERNARD  PAINE.                         1885.  1894.  59. 

14.  EDWARD  EVERETT  BACON.         1894. 

NOTE. — The  letter  c  following  a  name  indicates  that  the  person  was  settled 
(through  the  medium  of  an  Ecclesiastical  Council. 


DEACONS. 


Chosen.     Resigned.  Died.  Aged. 

1.  THOMAS  ADGATE.                       1646.     1660.  1707.  85. 

2.  FRANCIS  BUSHNELL.                    1648.  1681.  82. 
,3.    WILLIAM  PARKER.          About  1670.  1725.  81. 


XIV. 

Chosen.  Resigned.       Died.  Aged! 

4.  NATHANIEL  CHAPMAN.    About  1681.  1726.  75^ 

5.  JOSEPH  BLAGUE.  About  1725.  1742.  48. 

6.  ANDREW  LORD.  About  1726.  J759-  61. 

7.  JOSHUA  BUSHNELL.  1742.  1778.  83. 

8.  HEZEKIAH  WHITTLESEY.  1761.  1785.  77. 

9.  CALEB  CHAPMAN.  1774-  17&5-  8o. 

10.  SAMUEL  KIRTLAND.  1782.  1805.  73. 

11.  CHRISTOPHER  LORD.  1782.  1788.    Moved  Away. 

12.  TRAVIS  AVER.  1788.  1812.  89. 

13.  ROBERT  ELY.  1801.  1822.     1829.  88. 

14.  WILLIAM  CHAPMAN.  1803.  1808.  49. 

15.  WILLIAM  LORD.  1808.  1825.  80. 

16.  SAMUEL  LYNDE.  1810.  1822.     1830.  69. 

17.  .  TIMOTHY  PRATT.  1823.  1823.  75. 

18.  RUFUS  CLARK.  1823.  1833.     1849.  84. 

19.  KLISHA  SILL.  1824.  1850..    1866.  94. 

20.  WILLIAM  CHALKER.  1826.  1848.     1851.  78. 

21.  WILLIAM  R.  CLARK.  1834.  1875.     1879.  81. 

22.  WILLIAM  REDFIELD.  1848.  1854.    1876.  69.. 

23.  OZIAS  H.  KIRTLAND.  1850.  1889. 

24.  RUFUS  C.  SHEPARD.  1854. 

25.  ROBERT  CHAPMAN.  1875. 

26.  THOMAS  C.  ACTON,  JR.  1890. 


HISTORY 

OF  THE 

FIRST  CHURCH   OF  OLD  SAYBROOK, 

— BY — 

AMOS  SHEFFIELD  CHESEBROUGH,  D.  D.* 


The  year  of  our  Lord,  1646,  will  ever  be  memorable  in  the 
annals  of  the  English  people.  It  marked  the  completed 
defeat  of  King  Charles  the  First  in  his  tyrannical  purpose,  by 
force  of  arms,  to  establish  the  royal  prerogative  upon  the  ruins 
of  their  liberties.  In  that  self-same  year,  Edward  Hopkins 
being  governor  of  this  then  English  Colony  of  Connecticut, 
the  Christian  people  inhabiting  the  original  town  of  Saybrook 
assembled  themselves  together  in  the  "  Great  Hall "  of  the 
Fort  at  the  "  Point,"  and,  in  the  phraseology  of  the  times, 
"  were  embodyed  into  Church  Estate."  The  vine  then  and 
there  planted  was  not  indigenous  to  this  soil.  It  was  an 
exotic  from  over  the  sea.  The  immigrants  who  came  hither 
to  set  up  their  homes  in  this  wilderness  brought  with  them  in 
their  hearts  and  characters,  as  the  richest  of  their  belongings, 
the  life-germ  of  the  Church  of  Christ.  All  that  was  needed 
to  give  to  it  visible  form  was  that  a  fit  opportunity  should  be 
afforded  for  its  development.  And  this  was  done  when,  with 


*In  the  preparation  of  this  History  the  writer  owes  a  grateful  acknowledgment 
to  Dr.  Samuel  Hart  for  valuable  suggestions  and  for  the  loan  of  pertinent  books 
and  pamphlets ;  and  also  to  Miss  Amelia  H.  Sheffield  for  the  liberty  to  make 
use  of  diaries  and  other  manuscript  papers  left  by  her  grandfather,  Rev.  Frederick 
W.  Hotchkiss.  But  for  the  inspiration  which  prompted  to  the  undertaking  of 
this  work,  and  for  materials  relating  to  persons,  events  and  localities  not  else- 
where obtainable,  he  is  especially  indebted  to  his  wife,  with  whom  the  antiquities 
of  Saybrook  have  been  a  passion  from  childhood.  The  Historical  Address 
delivered  on  the  occasion  of  the  Anniversary  was  an  abridgment  of  this  History. 


solemn  prayer,  the  candidates  for  church  membership,  having 
presented  credible  evidence  of  piety,  and  having  been  baptized 
in  the  name  of  the  Father  and  ot  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  "  covenanted  with  God  and  with  one  another  to  walk 
together  in  the  ways  of  the  Lord."  The  Church  thus  and 
then  organized  has  not  grown  old,  but  bears  upon  her  vener- 
able face  the  flush  of  a  vigorous  maturity.  The  revolutions 
that  have  shaken  the  continents  have  settled  her  more  firmly 
upon  the  sure  foundation ;  and  though  the  personnel  of  her 
membership  has,  by  the  lapse  of  time  and  new  social  condi- 
tions, been  continually  changing,  she  has  retained  her  identity 
as  the  same  witness  for  Christ  in  this  community.  So  that 
to-day,  with  gladness,  she  receives  the  congratulations  of  her 
friends  on  the  occurrence  of  her  two  hundred  and  fiftieth 
birthday,  and  renders  praise  to  her  great  Head,  whose  "  faith- 
fulness is  unto  all  generations." 

The  auspicious  circumstances  attending  the  founding  of 
this  ancient  Church  were  largely  determined  by  the  character 
and  measures  of  the  men  who  had  the  early  control  of  the 
settlement.  Ten  and  a  half  years  of  needful  preparation  had 
elapsed  subsequent  to  the  landing  of  an  advance  party  of 
twenty  men,  which  took  formal  possession  of  the  locality  in  x 
the  name  of  a  company  consisting  of  Lord  Say  and  Sele, 
Lord  Brooke,  and  other  gentlemen  of  distinction,  who  held  a 
grant  or  deed  of  these  lands  from  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  who 
in  turn,  it  is  claimed,  based  his  rights  upon  a  grant  made  to 
him  by  the  "  Plymouth  Company "  acting  under  a  royal 
charter.  The  landing  was  effected  on  the  24th  of  November, 
1635,  a  little  later  in  the  same  year  in  which  Hartford  was 
settled.  This  advance  party  brought  with  them  materials 
for  the  erection  of  houses  for  the  accommodation  of  those 
who  were  to  follow.  Provision  was  made  also  for  the  imme- 
diate construction  of  a  strong  military  defense  or  fort  as  a 
protection  against  the  attacks  of  the  Dutch  of  New  Nether- 
lands, on  the  one  hand,  who  were  planning  by  force  to  get 
control  of  the  mouth  of  Connecticut  River,  and  of  the  ruthless 
savages  in  the  neighborhood,  on  the  other.  Not  until  the 
destruction  of  the  Pequot  stronghold  in  Groton,  a  year  and  a 


half  after  the  landing,  was  there  any  safety  from  attacks  by 
these  savages  outside  of  the  palisades,  twelve  feet  high,  built 
across  the  neck  of  the  peninsula  of  the  "Point."'  It  was  only 
by  slow  degrees,  therefore,  that  the  habitable  boundaries  were 
•extended  and  the  settlers  sufficiently  strong  to  render  it  safe 
to  make  their  homes  at  any  great  distance  outside  of  the  fort 
or  to  warrant  a  permanent  church  organization. 

I  come  now  to  the  preliminary  question  :  Who  were  the 
leading  men  in  this  enterprise  to  whom  it  was  given,  as 
pioneers,  to  shape  the  moral  and  spiritual  destinies  of  the 
newly  forming  community  ?  Not  to  make  the  list  too  long, 
there  are,  at  least,  five  names  which  call  for  honorable 
mention. 

The  first  is  that  of  JOHN  WINTHROP,  the  eldest  son  of  the 
illustrious  Governor  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Colony  of  the 
same  name.  He  was  one  of  the  strongest  characters  in  the 
early  annals  of  New  England,  and  at  the  same  time  one  of  the 
most  beautiful.  Born  in  Groton,  Suffolk  County,  England, 
February  12,  1606;  educated  at  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  he 
followed  his  father  to  America  in  1631,  and  was  chosen  a 
magistrate  of  Massachusetts.  Soon  afterwards  he  returned  to 
England,  but  came  back  in  October,  1635,  being  then  twenty- 
nine  years  old,  with  a  commission  from  the  company  formed 
under  the  Warwick  Patent  of  which  I  have  spoken,  "to  begin 
•a  plantation  "  and  to  build  a  fort  with  houses,  not  only  for 
laborers  and  soldiers,  but  "  houses  also  for  men  of  quality,"  at 
the  mouth  of  Connecticut  River,  and  to  be  governor  of  the 
settlement  for  one  year  after  his  arrival.  The  advance  party, 
which  he  sent  forward,  consisting  of  Lieutenant  Gibbons, 
Sergeant  Willard,  with  some  carpenters,  arrived  so  late  in  the 
season  (November  24th)  that  they  were  able  to  do  little  more 
before  the  winter  set  in,  than  to  provide  themselves  with 
shelters  of  the  most  primitive  character.  Mr.  Winthrop  him- 
self visited  the  place  the  following  April,  and  set  things  in 
order  under  the  efficient  superintendence  of  Lion  Gardiner. 
This  visit  lasted  just  three  months;  and  then  having  joined 


-4- 

his  family  in  Massachusetts,  he  filled  out  the  remainder  of  his* 
commission  by  correspondence. 

The  letters  of  instruction  addressed  to  Winthrop  by  mem- 
bers of  the  company  under  whose  commission  he  acted 
(published  in  the  Mass.  Hist.  Collections),  show  conclusively 
that  several  of  them  contemplated  removing  to  the  new 
plantation.  Lord  Say  and  Sele,  Lord  Brooke,  Sir  Arthur 
Haselrig,  Sir  Matthew  Boynton,  and  Mr.  Henry  Lawrence 
gave  decided  intimations  to  that  effect,  and  they  urged  that 
fit  accommodations  be  made  for  them  in  anticipation  of  their 
coming.  Belonging  as  they  did  to  the  extreme  Puritan  party, 
the  intolerant  and  arbitrary  government  of  King  Charles 
threatened  to  make  it  prudent*and  even  necessary  for  men  of 
their  prominence  to  leave  England.  It  is  significant  of  their 
attitude,  that  the  first  two  of  the  gentlemen  just  named  repre- 
sented that  party  in  the  long  parliament  by  demanding  the 
entire  abolition  of  the  Episcopacy.  (A.)* 

As  it  respects  the  character  of  Winthrop,  Bancroft  says  : 
"  From  boyhood  his  manners  had  been  spotless;  and  the  purity 
of  his  soul  added  lustre  and  beauty  to  the  gifts  of  nature  and 
industry."  He  was  an  accomplished  scholar,  distinguished  as 
a  chemist  and  physician,  a  wise  and  evenly-balanced  man  of 
affairs,  and  withal  a  devout  Christian.  Though  his  adminis- 
tration here  was  brief,  he  left  the  impress  of  his  noble  charac- 
ter upon  the  settlement.  Some  twenty  years  after  his  term  of 
service  in  Saybrook  expired,  he  was  chosen  Governor  of  the 
Colony  of  Connecticut,  an  office  which  he  filled  with  honor 
for  eighteen  years.  In  1661  he  was  sent  to  England  to 
procure  a  charter  for  the  Colony, — a  mission  in  which  he  was 
successful.  He  died  in  1676. 

I  next  mention  Winthrop's  efficient  lieutenant,  LION  GAR- 
DINER.  He  was  by  profession  an  engineer  and  had  spent 
some  years  in  the  service  of  the  Prince  of  Orange  in  the  Low 
Countries.  To  him  was  given  the  charge  of  the  construction 
of  the  fort  at  the  mouth  of  the  river  and  of  the  layout  of  the 

*  Capital  letters  enclosed  in  parentheses  refer  the  reader  to  notes  at  the  close- 
of  the  History. 


city  that  was  to  be.  For  four  years,  with  very  limited1" 
resources,  he  managed  affairs  with  great  wisdom.  His  biog- 
rapher says  of  him,  that  he  was  "  at  an  early  age  a  God- 
fearing Puritan ;  that  he  emigrated  to  New  England  in  the 
interests  of  Puritanism,  and  justly  belongs  among  the  founders 
of  New  England.  He  was  singularly  modest,  firm  in  his 
friendships,  patient  of  toil,  serene  amidst  alarms,  inflexible  in 
faith."  He  arrived  here  in  March,  1636,  and  remained  in 
control  of  the  fort  and  settlement  until  the  coming  of  Colonel 
Fenwick  four  years  later.  He  then  retired  to  the  island  in 
Long  Island  Sound  which  bears  his  name,  but  his  good 
influence  survived  his  departure.  In  the  latter  part  of  1663 
he  died  at  the  age  of  sixty-four. 

The  third  personage  who  calls  for  specific  mention  is 
GEORGE  FENWICK.  He  was  a  member  of  the  company  of 
grantees  of  the  so-called  "Warwick  Patent,"  under  which  the 
settlement  of  Saybrook  was  effected,  and  he  it  was  who  gave 
to  it  its  name  in  honor  of  two  of  his  associates,  Lord  Say  and 
Sele  and  Lord  Brooke.  He  belonged  to  an  ancient  and  hon- 
orable family  and  he  designed,  as  did  several  other  members 
of  the  company,  to  make  America  his  home.  After  having 
paid  a  brief  visit  to  the  new  settlement  in  1636,  he  returned 
to  England  to  arrange  for  his  permanent  removal.  Three 
years  later,  he  came  back  with  his  accomplished  wife,  Lady 
Alice  Boteler.  The  four  years  for  which  Lieut.  Gardiner  had 
been  engaged  having  expired,  he  assumed  the  entire  control. 
In  consequence  of  the  brightening  of  the  prospects  of  the 
Puritan  party  in  England,  his  associates  abandoned  their 
purpose  of  removing  hither,  and  he  was  left  as  the  sole 
representative  of  their  proprietary  interests  in  America.  Dis- 
appointed at  this  turn  of  affairs,  in  December,  1644,  he  trans- 
ferred for  a  consideration  the  fort  and  all  the  territorial  rights 
of  the  company  to  the  Colony  of  Connecticut ;  and  Saybrook, 
after  having  been  for  eight  years  a  separate  jurisdiction, 
became  a  Connecticut  town.  At  the  session  of  the  General 
Court  in  April,  1645,  he  was  chosen  a  magistrate  of  the 
Colony.  In  July  he  was  appointed  one  of  the  Commissioners 


— 6— 

of  the  United  Colonies  of  New  England.  In  1645  (not  1648, 
as  on  her  tombstone),  Lady  Fenwick  having  died,  he  returned 
to  England  with  two  surviving  children  and  was  prominently 
active  in  the  civil  strife  which  was  then  convulsing  the  king- 
dom. He  died  in  1657.  (B.) 

As  to  his  character  and  influence,  Edward  Johnson,  the 
author  of  the  "  Wonder  Working  Providence,"  calls  him  "  a 
godly  and  able  instrument  to  assist  in  helping  to  uphold  the 
-civil  government  of  the  second  and  third  colonies  here  planted, 
and  a  good  encourager  of  the  Church  of  Christ  in  Hartford." 
Lady  Fenwick  became  a  member  of  that  church,  and  on  her 
admission  presented  her  eldest  child,  Elizabeth,  for  baptism  at 
the  hands  of  Rev.  Thomas  Hooker,  the  pastor.  Both  she 
and  her  husband  were  stanch  Puritans.  Mr.  Fenwick's  monu- 
ment at  Berwick-on-the-Tweed  bears  the  inscription,  "  A 
Good  Man  is  a  Public  Good."  We  may  well  believe  that  his 
administration  here,  taken  in  connection  with  the  influence  of 
his  lovely  wife,  contributed  most  favorably  to  the  religious 
development  of  the  settlement. 

But  the  little  community  at  the  fort  and  in  the  immediate 
neighborhood  must  have  a  chaplain  to  look  after  its  spiritual 
welfare  and  to  conduct  religious  worship ;  for  the  chief 
questions  involved  in  the  Puritan  emigration  were  questions 
-of  religion.  Two  of  the  men  who  filled  this  position  were 
well  qualified  for  their  work  and  deserve  special  notice.  And 
here  it  is  in  place  to  say  that  one  reason  why  the  organization 
of  the  church  was  delayed  for  ten  and  a  half  years,  was  that 
the  exposed  and  strategic  situation  of  the  settlement  deter- 
mined it  to  be  at  first  more  of  a  military  post  than  a  planta- 
tion, and  hence  that  its  first  religious  teachers  should  be 
chaplains  of  a  garrison,  rather  than  pastors  of  an  organized 
-church. 

The  first  chaplain  was  JOHN  HIGGINSON,  one  of  the 
brightest  personages  in  the  colonial  history  of  New  England. 
He  was  the  eldest  child  of  Rev.  Francis  Higginson,  vicar  of 
Claybrook  Church,  Leicester  County,  England,  who,  on  emi- 
grating to  America  in  1629,  was  ordained  as  the  first  teacher 


—7— 

of  the  first  church  organized  in  New  England — that  at  Salem, 
Mass.  John,  the  son,  became  a  member  of  this  church  imme- 
diately on  its  organization,  at  the  early  age  of  thirteen.  His 
father  having  died  of  a  prevailing  fever  after  only  a  year's; 
ministry,  the  magistrates  and  ministers  of  the  colony  rendered 
him  assistance  in  the  obtaining  of  an  education^  for  which  he 
expressed  the  warmest  gratitude.  It  was  probably  through 
the  influence  of  Governor  Winthrop  that  he  secured  the 
chaplaincy  at  Saybrook  Fort  in  1636,  or  early  in  1637,  when 
only  twenty  years  old.  He  had  not  then  received  ordination, 
but  he  so  "  suitably,  seasonably  and  profitably "  discharged 
the  duties  of  his  post  in  the  conduct  of  worship  and  other 
religious  services,  that  he  drew  to  himself  the  confidence  of 
both  Lieut.  Gardiner  and  Col.  Fenwick,  and  of  the  men  of 
the  garrison.  He  is  spoken  of  by  Thomas  Lechford,  a 
London  attorney  who  visited  Saybrook  Fort,  as  "  one  Master 
Higgison,  a  young  man,  their  chaplain."  It  is  not  true,  as 
has  been  repeatedly  sajd,  that  "  this  church  under  his  ministry 
had  its  beginning."  On  closing  his  labors  in  Saybrook  he 
spent  a  year  or  more  in  Hartford,  teaching  school  and  com- 
pleting his  preparation  for  the  ministry  under  Rev.  Thomas 
Hooker,  meanwhile  serving  as  Mr.  Hooker's  amanuensis. 
By  reason  of  changes,  probably  not  more  than  three  or  four 
men  who  belonged  to  the  garrison  during  Mr.  Higginson's 
incumbency  became  members  of  this  church  at  its  organiza- 
tion. In  1643  we  find  him  at  Guilford,  standing  as  one  of  the 
seven  pillars  of  the  church  organized  there,  and  serving  as 
the  assistant  and  subsequently  as  the  colleague  of  Rev.  Henry 
Whitfield,  pastor  of  the  church.  He  married  Sarah,  daughter 
of  Mr.  Whitfield — the  marriage  taking  place,  according  to- 
tradition,  in  the  old  stone  mansion,  the  well-known  relic  of 
antiquity  still  standing  in  Guilford,  with  rye  bread,  pork  and 
peas  for  the  wedding  feast.  In  1659,  resigning  his  pastorate, 
he  took  ship  with  his  family  for  England  ;  but  driven  by 
adverse  winds  into  the  harbor  of  Salem,  he  was  induced  to- 
remain  there,  succeeding  Rev.  Hugh  Peters  as  minister  of  the 
church  founded  by  his  father  some  thirty  years  before.  He 
died  at  the  age  of  ninety-two,  universally  beloved  and 


respected.  Mr.  Higginson  had  no  superiors  in  literary  accom- 
plishments among  his  cotemporaries,  and  as  a  minister  he 
won  for  himself  the  honorable  title,  "  The  Nestor  of  the  New 
England  Clergy." 

Subsequently  to  Mr.  Higginson's  retirement  from  the  Say- 
brook  chaplaincy,  REV.  THOMAS  PETERS  was  secured  to  fill 
his  place.  He  was  a  clergyman  of  the  English  Church  in 
middle  life,  who  had  been  driven  from  his  charge  in  Cornwall, 
England,  by  royalist  forces  for  his  non-conformity,  and  com- 
pelled to  flee  from  the  country.  He  was  a  brother  of  Rev. 
Hugh  Peters,  whom  Mr.  Higginson  succeeded  at  Salem,  but 
a  man  of  a  much  milder  and  more  judicious  temper.  All  that 
we  know  of  him  indicates  that  he  was  a  good  minister  and 
that  he  discharged  his  duties  with  fidelity  and  success,  though 
he  cannot  properly  be  called  a  minister  of  this  church.  His 
stay  here  was  brief,  for  when  early  in  1646,  John  Winthrop 
the  younger  was  commissioned  to  begin  a  settlement  at 
Pequot,  now  New  London,  Mr.  Peters  was  induced  to  remove 
thither  as  his  assistant — a  service  into  which  he  entered  with 
enthusiasm  and  efficiency.  But  his  plans  in  this  regard  were 
cut  short  by  a  summons  from  his  old  home  in  Cornwall, 
England,  to  resume  the  charge  of  his  former  flock  and  to 
rejoin  his  family.  He  yielded  to  the  summons  and  took  leave 
of  America  in  the  autumn  of  the  same  year.  It  deserves  to 
to  be  especially  noted,  that  in  the  positions  he  occupied,  he 
ministered  not  only  to  the  souls  of  men,  but  in  the  practice  of 
medicine  and  surgery,  to  their  bodily  healing.  (C.) 

We  are  now  brought  to  the  eventful  point  towards  which 
these  preliminaries  have  been  tending,  viz. :  the  organization  of 
a  church  in  Saybrook  with  a  settled  ministry.  Doubtless  this 
measure  had  been  in  serious  contemplation  for  some  length  of 
time,  as  the  population  had  increased  by  the  moving  in  of  new 
families.  It  was  not  necessary  at  this  early  period,  as  it  was 
at  a  later  date,  to  obtain  the  sanction  of  the  General  Court  for 
such  a  movement.  As  all  were  Congregationalists,  they  took 
action  townwise  in  calling  the  minister,  and  in  providing  for 
Tiis  support,  and  for  all  other  ecclesiastical  expenses. 


Rev.  Thomas  Hooker  of  Hartford,  from  his  having  been 
the  pastor  of  Lady  Fenwick,  and  subsequently  the  instructor 
of  Mr.  Higginson,  would  very  likely  be  consulted  with  regard 
to  the  contemplated  measure,  and  it  was  doubtless  at  his  sug- 
gestion that  MR.  JAMES  FITCH,  a  young  man  who  came  to 
this  country  in  1638  and  had  been  for  several  years  pursuing 
classical  and  theological  studies  under  his  tuition,  was  invited 
to  preach  as  a  candidate  for  the  prospective  pastorate.  This 
"  famous  young  gentleman,"  as  the  historian  Trumbull  calls 
him,  was  of  a  good  family,  born  in  Boking,  Essex  County, 
England,  near  Mr.  Hooker's  old  residence,  December  24, 
1622,  and  hence  was  now  in  his  twenty-fourth  year.  His 
services  proved  to  be  satisfactory.  A  call  to  the  pastoral 
office  was  extended  to  him  and  accepted,  and  a  day  appointed 
for  the  organization  of  the  church  and  his  ordination.  The 
exact  month  and  day  are  not  known,  but  it  was  probably 
early  in  the  summer  of  1646;  and  due  preparation  was  made 
for  the  event  according  to  the  usage,  by  the  observance  of  a 
day  of  fasting  and  prayer. 

As  there  are  no  extant  records  of  this  important  trans- 
action, our  imaginations,  aided  by  tradition  and  the  custom  of 
the  times,  must  fill  out  the  picture.  The  public  exercises 
were  held  in  the  "  Great  Hall "  of  the  fort.  We  may  reason- 
ably suppose  that  there  were  present,  as  representatives  of 
neighbor  churches,  Rev.  Thomas  Hooker,  and  doubtless  his 
colleague,  Rev.  Samuel  Stone,  and  possibly  Elder  William 
Goodwin,  from  the  church  in  Hartford;  also,  Rev.  Henry 
Whitfield  and  his  colleague,  Rev.  John  Higginson,  the  former 
chaplain  of  the  fort,  accompanied  by  a  lay  delegate,  from  the 
church  in  Guilford.  Rev.  John  Warham  of  Windsor  and 
Rev.  John  Davenport  of  New  Haven,  with  lay  delegates  from 
their  respective  churches,  would  perhaps  be  present.  And 
although  there  was  as  yet  no  organized  church  at  New 
London,  we  should  expect  to  see  among  the  attendants  from 
abroad,  Rev.  Thomas  Peters  and  Mr.  John  Winthrop,  both  of 
whom  had  been  in  service  here. 

As  we  cast  our  eyes  over  the  congregation  of  Saybrook 
residents  present,  what  countenances  do  we  recognize  as 


—  IO — 

beaming  with  a  deep  personal  interest  in  the  exercises  ?     We 
see  there  Robert  Chapman,  who  had  been  connected  with  the 
fort  and  the  settlement  longer  than  any  other  person  present^, 
now  a  man  of  about  thirty  years  of  age.     Thomas  Adgate,. 
who  is  to  be  the  deacon  of  the  new  church,  we  see  there,  as  also 
William  Bushnell.     We  may  reasonably  expect  to  identify  in 
the  congregation  Thomas  Bliss,  Robert  Lay,  William  Lord,. 
Thomas  Leffingwell,  William  Pratt  and  Thomas  Tracy,  and 
others  well  worthy  to  have  a  place  among  the  founders,  some 
of  them  with  wives  and  children.*     Matthew  Griswold  and 
William    Parker,    if  not  present  on  this   occasion,  probably 
joined  the  new  organization  a  short  time  afterwards.     (D.) 

The  exercises  proceed  probably  after  the  following  order  :: 
Prayer  is  offered,  the  Scriptures  are  read  and  expounded,  and 
a  psalm  is  sung,  either  from  the  Ainsworth  version,  a  book 
dear  to  the  first  generation  of  New  England  Pilgrims  and 
Puritans,  or  else  from  the  "Bay  Psalm  Book,"  now  recently 
published  at  Cambridge.  Rev.  Thomas  Hooker  preaches  the 
-sermon,  which,  no  doubt,  is  equal  to  the  occasion.  The 
persons  who  are  to  be  constituted  into  the  Church,  either  by 
subscribing  their  names,  or  by  audible  assent,  confess  their 
faith  in  Christ,  while  they  covenant  with  God  and  with  one 
another  "  to  walk  together  according  to  the  rule  of  the 
Gospel,  and  in  all  sincere  conformity  to  its  holy  ordinances, 
and  in  mutual  love  and  respect  each  to  other,  as  near  as  God 
shall  give  us  grace.' 'f  They  then  in  response  receive  from 
one  or  more  of  the  visiting  pastors  and  lay  representatives  of 
the  churches,  the  right  hand  of  fellowship  in  token  of  recog- 
nition. 

The  Church  having  been  thus  organized,  Mr.  Fitch  presents, 
his  views  of  Christian  Doctrine,  and  gives  expression  to  his 
personal  faith  in  Christ,  and  of  his  conviction  that  he  is 
divinely  called  to  be  a  minister  of  the  Gospel.  The  Church 


*  For  further  particulars  with  regard  to  the  personnel  and  character  of  the 
founders,  see  the  note  (D)  at  the  close  of  this  History,  and  also  the  address  of 
Rev.  Edward  M.  Chapman  on  "  The  Founders  "  on  a  subsequent  page. 

|  Quoted  from  the  first  covenant  of  the  First  Church  of  Boston. 


— II — 

is  then  called  upon  to  signify  their  choice  of  him  as  their 
pastor.  This  being  answered  in  the  affirmative  by  the  erection 
of  hands,  Mr.  Fitch  is  asked  if  he  did  accept  the  call  to  the 
office.  Whereto,  if  he  responds,  as  Rev.  John  Cotton  did 
several  years  before,  when  about  to  be  ordained  as  teacher  of 
the  First  Church  of  Boston,  he  says  :  "  However  I  know 
myself  unworthy  and  insufficient  for  this  place,  yet  having 
observed  the  passages  of  God's  providence  in  calling  me  to  it, 
I  cannot  but  accept  it."  He  is  then  solemnly  ordained  to  the 
pastoral  office  in  this  Church  according  to  the  strict  Congre- 
gational method  by  the  laying  on  of  the  hands  of  two  desig- 
nated brethren  of  the  Church  and  by  prayer  offered  by  one  ot 
the  ministers.  Thomas  Adgate  is  probably  set  apart  to  the 
diaconate  at  the  same  time  and  in  a  somewhat  similar  way. 
The  services  are  closed  by  a  song  of  praise.  With  these  holy 
and  appropriate  rites,  this  ancient  Church  was  started  off  in 
her  career  of  the  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  now  closing ; 
and  no  doubt  we  are  feeling  to-day  the  quickening  thrill  of 
those  moments  of  her  divine  and  joyous  birth. 

From  this  account,  it  is  seen  that  this  Church  was  from  the 
beginning  a  Congregational  Church  of  the  strictest  type, 
without  a  trace  of  prelacy  or  presbyterianism,  framed  upon 
the  principles  which  two  years  later  were  embodied  in  the 
Cambridge  Platform,  thus  reflecting  the  views  of  ecclesiastical 
polity  entertained  by  the  English  projectors  of  the  settlement. 
In  date  of  organization,  it  is  probably  to  be  ranked  as  the 
eleventh  church  formed  within  the  present  boundaries  of  the 
State.  The  church  in  Windsor  dates  back  to  1630,  and  the 
First  Church  in  Hartford  to  1632 — both  organized  prior  to 
their  migration  hither.  Next  came  the  churches  in  Wethers- 
field  and  Stamford,  founded  in  1635.  The  churches  in  New 
Haven,  Milford,  Fairfield  and  Stratford  go  back,  according  to 
their  respective  claims,  to  1639,  tnat  in  Guilford  to  1643,  that 
in  Branford  to  1644.  It  should  be  said,  however,  that  two  or 
three  of  these  dates  are  conjectural. 

At  the  session  of  the  General  Court  in  March,  1658,  twelve 
years  after  the  organization  of  this  Church,  an  act  was  passed 
prohibiting  all  persons  "in  this  jurisdiction"  from  "embody- 


— 12 — 

ing  themselves  into  church-estate  without  the  consent  of 
the  General  Court,  and  approbation  of  the  neighbouring 
Churches."  Although  this  enactment  was  not  designed  to 
affect  retroactively  the  civil  relations  of  the  churches  already 
established,  yet,  when,  several  years  later,  it  was  discovered 
that  the  records  of  the  Council  organizing  this  Church  were 
missing,  with  the  church  records,  a  good  deal  of  anxiety  was 
awakened  lest  this  loss  might  prejudice  the  Church's  legal 
standing.  The  first  supposition  was  that  these  documents, 
being  in  the  custody  of  the  pastor,  Rev.  Mr.  Fitch,  and  of 
John  Birchard,  the  town  clerk,  had  been  taken  away  with 
their  personal  belongings  on  their  removal,  with  a  large  pro- 
portion of  the  church  members,  to  Norwich  in  1660.  But  as 
no  trace  of  the  lost  records  was  found,  a  petition  was  pre- 
sented to  the  General  Court  in  1669  for  a  healing  act  to  make 
good  the  loss,  on  which  the  following  action  was  taken,  viz. : 

"  Whereas  our  beloved  brethren  at  Saybrook  embodyed  themselves  in  Church- 
Society,  and  this  Court  findeing  no  record  of  their  proceedings  in  this  matter, 
doe  now  upon  their  request  see  cause  hereby  to  declare,  that  they  doe  approve 
of  their  embodying  themselves  in  Church-Society,  and  desire  the  Lord  to  smile 
upon  them,  establish  and  bless  their  beginnings."  [Col.  Records,  October) 
1669.]  (E.) 

After  Col.  Fenwick's  departure  for  England,  during  the 
winter  of  1645-6,  at  the  special  request  of  the  inhabitants, 
Capt.  John  Mason  removed  to  Saybrook  from  Windsor  early 
in  1647,  and  was  placed  in  military  command  of  the  fort.  He 
proved  to  be  a  valuable  member  of  the  weak  and  growing 
community  and  an  efficient  helper  to  the  young  pastor.  Soon 
after  his  removal  hither,  the  fort,  which  was  built  of  wood, 
took  fire,  and  was  consumed  with  the  structures  enclosed 
within  its  area,  and  the  adjacent  buildings.  Capt.  Mason  with 
his  wife  and  children  barely  escaped  the  flames.  This  calamity 
not  only  necessitated  the  construction  of  a  new  fort,  but,  for 
several  months,  deprived  a  large  part  of  the  residents  of  their 
homes.  And  doubtless,  according  to  the  tradition,  many  of 
the  women  and  children  of  the  settlement  were  dependent 
upon  the  hospitality  of  friends  in  other  places  until  accommo- 
dations for  their  comfortable  housing  could  here  be  provided 


—  13— 

Tor  them.  A  meeting-house,  for  which  partial  provision  had 
probably  been  already  made,  was,  with  as  little  delay  as  pos- 
sible, enclosed  and  opened  for  worship.  Although  its  walls 
were  bare,  its  sittings  uncomfortable,  and  its  exterior  unin- 
viting, there  were  adequate  compensations  in  the  grateful  and 
hearty  enjoyment  with  which  the  worshipers  entered  into 
the  services.  The  building  stood  on  the  north  side  of  the 
""  Middle  Lane"  at  Saybrook  Point,  a  few  rods  westerly  of  the 
house  occupied  by  Mrs.  Mary  B.  Burger.  A  lot  of  land,  ad- 
joining the  opposite  side  of  the  street,  was  laid  out  for  a  public 
square  called  "  The  Green,"  south  of  which  was  located  the 
first  or  "  Old  Cemetery  "  of  the  settlement.  The  builder  of 
the  meeting-house  is  believed  to  have  been  William  Bushnell, 
assisted  by  his  brothers  Francis  and  Richard,  who,  after  a 
brief  stay  in  Guilford,  settled  here.  In  consequence  of  the 
destruction  of  the  fort  with  its  buildings,  work  in  their  line 
of  business,  that  of  carpentry,  was  then  in  urgent  demand. 
These  men  were  held  in  high  repute  among  the  early  inhabi- 
tants. Francis  was  chosen  deacon  of  the  Church  during  Mr. 
Fitch's  ministry.  William  was  more  prominent  in  civil  and 
military  life. 

In  those  days,  the  congregation  was  called  together  by  the 
beat  of  the  drum.  By  special  enactment  of  the  General  Court 
May  20,  1647,  Saybrook  was  required  to  have  at  the  meeting- 
house, flanking  the  front  door,  "a  gard  of  8  men  every 
Sabboth  and  Lecture-day  compleat  in  their  arms,"  to  protect 
the  assembly  from  Indian  assaults.  It  was  customary  also  to 
station  an  armed  sentinel  upon  a  turret  or  platform  built  upon 
the  roofs  of  the  meeting-houses  to  watch  against  surprises 
from  the  savages.  These  customs  furnish  the  basis  for  the 
-humorous  lines  in  John  Trumbull's  "  Mac  Fingal  "  : 

"  So  once,  for  fear  of  Indian  beating, 
Our  grandsires  bore  their  guns  to  meeting, — 
Each  man  equipped  on  Sunday  morn 
With  Psalm-book,  shot  and  powder  horn  ; 
And  looked  in  form,  as  all  must  grant, 
Like  the  ancient  true  church  militant." 


—14— 

The  minister's  house  was  located  westward  from  the  meet- 
ing-house on  the  same  side  of  the  street.  Into  this  parsonage,, 
two  years  after  his  ordination,  Mr.  Fitch  introduced,  as  his 
newly  married  wife,  Abigail,  a  daughter  of  Rev.  Henry  Whit- 
field  of  Guilford  and  sister  of  the  wife  of  Rev.  John  Higgin- 
son,  and  therein  six  children,  two  sons  and  four  daughters, 
were  born  to  him. 

Mr.  Fitch's  ministry  here  proved  to  be  a  very  happy  and 
successful  one.  Notwithstanding  the  hostile  attitude  of  the 
Dutch  and  the  Indians,  the  plantation  grew  by  the  moving  in 
of  choice  families,  some  of  them  from  Windsor  and  Hartford, 
attracted  in  part  by  the  popularity  of  the  young  preacher. 
But  after  a  lapse  of  fourteen  years,  a  shadow  fell  upon  this 
prosperity.  A  large  number  of  the  residents,  apparently  a 
majority  of  the  men  of  enterprise,  removed  to  that  part  of  the 
Mohegan  territory,  which  was  subsequently  incorporated  as 
the  town  of  Norwich,  taking  with  them  Mr.  Fitch  and  Deacon 
Adgate.  This  section  of  land,  nine  miles  square,  was  ceded 
to  the  proprietors — there  were  thirty-five  of  them,  mostly 
from  Saybrook — by  the  Sachem  Uncas  and  his  sons,  for 
seventy  pounds. 

As  to  the  reasons  which  induced  this  abandonment  of  their 
recently  erected  dwellings  and  their  cultivated  lands  in  favor 
of  setting  up  their  homes  in  an  unsubdued  frontier  wilderness, 
one  tradition  says  that  they  were  driven  from  Saybrook  by 
the  innumerable  crows  and  blackbirds  which  tore  up  their 
newly  planted  corn ;  another  assigns  the  bar  at  the  mouth  of 
the  river,  presenting  as  it  did  an  insurmountable  obstacle  to- 
the  commercial  prosperity  of  the  town,  as  the  cause.  But 
the  real  motive  is  probably  to  be  found  in  the  attractions  of 
the  beautiful  and  fertile  lands  which  border  the  Shetucket  and 
Yantic  rivers  above  the  point  where  they  unite  to  form  the 
Thames.  These  attractions  had  not  escaped  the  keen  eyes  of 
Capt.  Mason,  as  he  roamed  over  the  region  on  his  Indian 
raids.  And  notwithstanding  the  sacrifices  which  it  would 
cost,  he  persistently  and  successfully  urged  the  change. 
What  was  the  result  to  Saybrook  ?  It  operated  doubtless  at 
first  as  a  more  severe  discouragement  than  that  which  was 


——  I  c  — — 

suffered  when  the  grantees  of  the  Warwick  Patent  abandoned 
^their  purpose  of  joining  Fenwick  in  America  and  all  their 
interests  here  were  sold  out  to  Connecticut.  But  there  was  no 
lasting  occasion  for  tears  over  the  occurrence.  The  vacancies 
were  soon  filled  by  new  comers,  and  in  the  course  of  a  few 
years,  hope  and  skill  and  industry  set  the  town  forward  in  a 
course  of  healthful  growth.  The  vitality  of  the  mother 
church,  so  far  from  being  exhausted,  was  so  replenished  in  her 
strength  as  to  be  able,  about  fifty  years  afterwards,  to  give  out 
of  her  own  family  membership  to  her  Norwich  daughter  an 
eminently  qualified  and  useful  pastor,  Rev.  Benjamin  Lord, 
D.  D.  (F.) 

The  question  has  been  raised — which  of  the  two  churches, 
the  Saybrook  church  or  the  emigrating  Norwich  church,  is  to 
•be  reckoned  as  the  older  or  original  church,  from  whose 
membership  a  new  organization  was  made  up  ?  If  it  is  true, 
as  an  old  tradition  asserts  and  as  several  of  the  historians  of 
Connecticut,  following  Trumbull,  teach,  that  "  the  majority  of 
the  church  removed  with  Mr.  Fitch  to  Norwich,"  then  it 
follows  that  the  migrating  body  is  entitled  to  be  regarded  as 
the  old  church,  and  those  who  remained  behind  were  the 
seceding  party  and  needed  a  new  organization.  But  there  is 
one  fact  that  to  my  mind  effectually  invalidates  this  conclu- 
sion, viz. :  that  this  Church  has  always  dated  its  organization 
from  the  year  1646;  and  the  first  church  of  Norwich  has 
never  claimed  any  earlier  date  than  the  year  1660.  In  printed 
addresses  and  on  public  occasions,  where  the  relations  of  the 
two  have  been  spoken  of,  the  former  has  been  denominated 
the  "  Mother  Church." 

In  the  light  of  this  fact,  I  cannot  repress  the  conviction 
-that  the  tradition  referred  to  rests  upon  no  substantial  basis. 
The  larger  part  of  the  younger  and  more  enterprising  mem- 
bers probably  joined  the  migrating  company,  and  Mr.  Fitch, 
after  anxious  and  prayerful  deliberation,  decided  to  go  with 
-them,  for  the  reason  that  in  their  new  wilderness  home  they 
-would  need  him  more  than  those  would  who  stayed  behind. 
This  conviction  is  strengthened  by  the  consideration  that  the 
'-taxable  property  in  Saybrook,  as  returned  to  the  colonial 


authorities,  largely  exceeded  that  returned  from  Norwich  for 
full  nineteen  years  after  the  separation.  After  an  interval  of 
ten  years,  i.  e.,  in  1670,  the  Norwich  returns  amounted  only 
to  ,£3,832,  while  Saybrook  figured  up  £4,873.  At  this  date, 
the  church  at  the  mouth  of  Connecticut  River  had  twenty- 
five  per  cent,  more  financial  ability  than  that  which  was 
located  at  the  headwaters  of  the  Thames.  (Q.) 

There  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  Norwich  company 
effected  its  church  organization  prior  to  its  exodus, — that  it 
went  up  "  harnessed  "  to  its  destination.  This  took  place  in  •. 
the  spring  of  1660,  a  pioneer  party  having  been  sent  forward 
the  year  before  for  the  purpose  of  laying  out  the  lots  and  of 
putting  up  buildings  for  the  accommodation  of  the  main  body 
which  was  to  follow.  Thus  Norwich  came  to  be  the  first  off- 
shoot of  the  original  Saybrook  stock. 

At  the  time  Mr.  Fitch  removed  to  Norwich,  his  six  children 
were  motherless,  his  wife  having  died  in  1659.  In  October, 
1664,  five  years  later,  he  was  united  to  Priscilla,  daughter  of 
Captain  John  Mason,  through  whom  he  was  enriched  with 
the  gift  of  eight  additional  children — seven  sons  and  one 
daughter. 

As  a  pastor,  he  was  in  both  localities  zealously  devoted  to 
his  flock,  and  greatly  beloved.  His  labors,  during  his  second 
pastorate,  in  efforts  to  christianize  and  civilize  the  Mohegan 
Indians  were  indefatigable.  He  trained  several  young  men 
for  the  ministry.  Cotton  Mather  characterized  him  as  "  the 
acute  and  holy  Mr.  Fitch."  The  high  estimate  in  which  he 
was  held  in  the  colony  is  shown  in  the  fact  that  after  the 
death  of  Rev.  Samuel  Stone  of  the  Hartford  Church,  he  was 
called  to  fill  the  vacancy.  His  significant  reply  was,  "  With 
whom  shall  I  leave  these  few  sheep  in  the  wilderness  ?" 
Having  filled  out  about  forty  years  in  this  second  pastorate,, 
he  retired  to  Lebanon,  which  was  included  in  "  the  nine  miles 
square"  purchase  of  the  Mohegans,  to  die  among  his  children 
who  had  settled  there.  The  following  extract  from  the 
inscription  on  his  tombstone,  translated  from  the  Latin,  tells 
the  rest:  "  He  fell  asleep  in  Jesus,  November  18,  1702,  in  the 
8oth  year  of  his  age.  He  was  a  man,  for  penetration 


—17— 

solidity  of  judgment,  devotion  to  the  duties  of  his  office,  and 
purity  of  life,  as  well  as  for  skill  and  energy  in  preaching, 
inferior  to  none." 

The  leading  publications  from  his  pen  are,  I.  A  Sermon  on 
the  death  of  his  wife's  mother,  Mrs.  Anne  Mason,  in  1672; 
2.  An  Election  Sermon,  in  1674;  3.  Letters  concerning  his 
labors  among  the  Indians,  in  1674;  4.  A  Treatise  concerning 
the  Judgments  of  God  upon  New  England,  1683 ;  and  a 
Treatise  upon  the  Sabbath,  1683. 

It  may  well  be  anticipated  that  the  next  few  years  will  be 
years  of  trial  to  the  bereaved  and  depleted  Church.  There  is 
no  second  Mr.  Fitch  to  fill  the  vacant  pastorate.  The  town 
records  under  date  of  February  18,  1661,  make  mention  of  a 
messenger  being  sent  to  Guilford  to  bring  a  Mr.  Peck  as  a 
supply  for  the  pulpit,  and  note  that  in  September  of  that  year, 
he  was  invited  to  serve  as  a  stated  preacher.  The  reference 
is  to  REV.  JEREMIAH  PECK,  son  of  Deacon  William  Peck  of 
the  church  in  New  Haven.  The  family  came  to  America  in 
the  ship  Hector  in  company  with  Gov.  Theophilus  Eaton 
and  Rev.  John  Davenport  of  the  New  Haven  Colony  in  1638, 
Jeremiah  being  at  that  time  fifteen  years  old.  He  took  a 
partial  course  of  study  at  Harvard  College,  after  which  he 
taught  school  at  Guilford  and  at  New  Haven,  occasionally 
preaching  as  the  opportunity  offered.  He  married  Johannah> 
the  daughter  of  Robert  Kitchell,  one  of  the  pioneer  settlers  of 
Guilford.  The  town  records  give  a  few  items  in  respect  to 
his  residence  here.  On  May  5,  1662,  measures  were  taken 
for  engaging  Mr.  Peck  to  supply  the  pulpit  for  the  year  ensu- 
ing, and  paying  him  therefor ;  and  in  August  of  that  year,  the 
town  granted  him  "  an  hundred  pounds  accommodation,"  to 
start  him  off  comfortably  in  his  ministry.  Soon  afterwards, 
though  not  settled  as  a  pastor,  he  purchased  a  site  and  built 
a  dwelling-house,  westward  of  the  house  occupied  by  Mr. 
Fitch,  which  Robert  Chapman  had  bought,  and  certain  privi- 
leges and  grants  of  land  were  voted  to  him  on  condition  of  his 
remaining  five  years.  But  a  difficulty  arose  between  him  and 
the  congregation,  which  resulted  in  his  resignation  before  the 
five  years  had  expired.  A  vexatious  and  protracted  contro- 


—1 8— 

versy  respecting  his  rights  in  the  house  and  the  lands  he  had 
occupied,  the  exact  nature  of  which  is  not  clear,  disturbed  for 
a  while  the  peace  of  the  community.  It  was  settled,  however, 
when  his  successor  entered  upon  this  field  of  labor. 

Let  it  suffice  to  say  with  regard  to  the  subsequent  fortunes 
of  Mr.  Peck,  that  in  1664  he  joined  a  company  of  inhabitants 
of  the  western  part  of  Connecticut  territory,  who  were  so  dis- 
satisfied with  the  provision  of  the  Charter  of  King  Charles 
which  attached  the  New  Haven  Colony  to  Connecticut,  that 
they  turned  their  backs  on  their  homes  and  formed  a  settle- 
ment at  Newark,  New  Jersey,  and  afterwards  at  Elizabeth- 
town,  in  which  latter  place  he  exercised  his  ministerial  gifts. 
In  1678,  he  retraced  his  steps  as  far  as  Greenwich,  in  this 
colony,  where  a  church  was  organized  which  he  served  as  its 
first  pastor  for  ten  years.  At  the  conclusion  of  this  period,  in 
1689,  he  became  the  first  pastor  of  the  newly  gathered 
church  of  Waterbury.  He  held  this  position  until  his  death 
in  1699,  he  being  seventy-six  years  old. 

As  a  result  of  the  unsuccessful  ministry  of  Mr.  Peck  in  this 
Church,  following  so  closely  upon  the  Norwich  emigration, 
it  is  nowise  strange  that  a  feeling  of  discouragement  should 
have  pressed  heavily  upon  it.  But  in  the  good  providence  of 
God,  timely  relief  came  in  the  acceptable  candidacy  of  MR. 
THOMAS  BUCKINGHAM  for  the  vacant  pastorate.  This  was  in 
the  spring  of  1665,  the  year  subsequent  to  Mr.  Peck's  with- 
drawal. Mr.  Buckingham  was  the  youngest  son  of  Thomas 
and  Hannah  Buckingham,  who  came  to  America  in  the  com- 
pany of  Eaton  and  Davenport  in  1638,  and  settled  in  New 
Haven.  The  father  was  one  of  the  seven  pillars  who  began 
the  church  in  Milford,  to  which  place  the  family  removed, 
and  where,  November  8,  1646,  our  ministerial  candidate  was 
born.  He  was  now  in  his  nineteenth  year,  and  in  the  full 
vigor  of  early  manhood.  Though  not  a  graduate  of  Harvard 
College,  he  was  scholarly  in  his  tastes  and  acquirements,  and, 
according  to  the  tradition,  fresh  from  under  the  literary  and 
theological  instruction  of  Rev.  John  Whiting,  successor  to 
Mr.  Hooker  in  the  First  Church  of  Hartford.  He  had  exer- 
cised his  gifts  in  preaching  in  the  Wethersfield  pulpit  pre- 


viously  to  his  coming  to  Saybrook.  It  was  decidedly  a  case 
of  love  at  first  sight — not,  however,  a  love  that  waned  under 
the  tests  of  experience,  but  an  affection  which  between  this 
Church  and  himself  grew  mutually  stronger  and  more  de- 
voted as  the  forty-four  years  of  his  ministry  passed  away. 

After  he  had  been  upon  the  ground  about  a  year,  an  event 
occurred  which  had  been  for  some  time  impending,  viz. :  the 
setting  up  of  separate  worship  on  the  east  side  of  the  river 
consequent  upon  the  proposed  incorporation  of  the  town  of 
Lyme.  Originally,  Saybrook  embraced  not  only  the  terri- 
tory covered  by  the  present  towns  of  Old  Saybrook,  West- 
brook,  Essex,  Saybrook  and  Chester,  but  also  a  large  part  of 
that  which  is  now  included  in  the  towns  of  Old  Lyme,  Lyme, 
and  East  Lyme,  then  called  "  East  Saybrook."  The  proprie- 
tors of  lands  in  East  Saybrook  retained  their  residences  on 
this  side  of  the  river,  for  fear  of  the  Indians,  until  after 
Matthew  Griswold,  about  the  year  1645,  built  a  log  house  in 
what  is  known  as  the  "  Black  Hall  Quarter,"  which  probably 
at  first  was  occupied  by  servants  and  hired  laborers  who  took 
care  of  the  cattle  and  the  crops  in  the  adjoining  fields.* 
Other  proprietors  soon  followed  suit  in  the  erection  of  build- 
ings, which  were  in  the  course  of  a  few  years  occupied  by 
resident  families,  so  that  by  the  time  that  Mr.  Buckingham 
began  his  labors  here,  measures  were  taken  by  them  for 
becoming  "  a  plantation  by  themselves,"  and  the  establish- 
ment of  separate  religious  services.  There  is  extant  a  very 
interesting  document  in  the  nature  of  a  cordial  agreement 
between  the  inhabitants  of  Saybrook  and  East  Saybrook, 
signed,  February  13,  1665-6,  by  committees  of  the  two 
sections,  explanatory  of  the  terms  on  which  they  take  their 
"  loving  parting  "  from  each  other.  On  certain  specified  and 
reasonable  conditions,  they  mutually  agree  that  the  tax  for- 
merly paid  by  the  East  side  for  the  support  of  the  ministry 

*  The  traditional  story  is  that  the  first  occupant  of  this  log-house  was  a  negro 
man,  and  that  the  building  from  this  fact  was  called  "  Black's  Hall,"  a  name 
subsequently  shortened  to  "  Black  Hall."  The  probability  is,  however,  that  the 
name  was  derived  from  an  English  locality. 


— 2O — 

on  the  West  side  shall  be  abated,  as  soon  as  the  former  has  ar 
minister  of  its  own.  This  proves  that  the  old  Church  inter- 
posed no  obstacle  to  the  separation.  The  grand  list  of  Say- 
brook  suffered  but  a  comparatively  small  reduction  by  the 
division,  being  £4,600  in  1671,  while  that  of  Lyme  was 
.£1,663.  Saybrook  was  at  that  time  one  of  the  stronger 
churches  in  the  colony. 

The  outcome  of  this  movement  was  that  in  1666  Rev. 
Moses  Noyes  was  engaged  as  a  minister  by  the  East  Say- 
brook  people,  a  log  meeting-house  was  put  up  on  the  brow 
of "  Meeting-house  Hill,"  and  Lyme  was  incorporated  as  a 
separate  town.  Mr.  Noyes  had  the  reputation  of  being  "  a. 
man  of  great  and  extensive  learning,  an  excellent  Christian, 
and  judicious  divine."  He  labored  in  Lyme  for  twenty-seven! 
years  before  being  ordained,  and  the  organization  of  a  church 
was  delayed  for  nearly  a  generation — a  delay  which  has  been 
regarded  difficult  to  account  for.  Those  who  retained  their 
membership  in  this  church  must  have  been  subjected  to  the 
necessity  of  crossing  the  river  for  participation  in  the  ordi- 
nances of  baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper.  It  was  in  1693 
that  the  second  colony  went  out  from  this  church  to  found, 
the  first  church  of  Old  Lyme. 

We  now  return  to  Mr.  Buckingham.  During  the  second' 
year  of  his  ministry,  in  1666,  he  took  to  himself  a  worthy 
helpmeet,  Hester,  a  daughter  of  Thomas  Hosmer,  one  of  the 
first  settlers  of  Hartford,  and  set  up  his  family  altar  in  the 
house  on  the  "  Middle  Lane,"  then  recently  occupied  by  Mr. 
Peck.  Here  nine  children  were  born  to  him,  seven  of  whom 
lived  to  reach  maturity  and  to  hold  positions  of  prominence 
in  society.  Stephen  was  pastor  of  the  church  in  Norwalk  for 
thirty  years.  Daniel,  another  son,  was  honored  in  his  lifetime 
with  the  confidence  of  his  brethren  of  the  church  and  of  his 
fellow-citizens,  in  the  way  of  official  trusts,  and  is  to  be  named' 
with  respect  as  the  ancestor  of  our  late  distinguished  war 
governor,  William  Alfred  Buckingham.  Several  descendants 
of  Mr.  Buckingham  are  at  present  members  of  this  church. 

In  addition  to  the  regular  salary  paid  to  Mr.  Buckingham^ 
which,  as  salaries  then  ranged,  was  probably  about  seventy— 


— 21  — 

five  or  eighty  pounds  annually,  made  up  either  by  voluntary- 
subscription  or  by  a  tax  levy  on  the  grand  list,  special  grants 
were  voted  to  him  from  time  to  time  as  his  needs  seemed  to 
require.  Thus,  after  his  marriage,  it  is  recorded,  that  the 
41  Committee  of  the  Oyster  River  Quarter  grant  to  Mr.  Buck- 
ingham the  use  of  the  homake  (hammock)  that  lyeth  at  the 
mouth  of  Oyster  River,  while  he  remains  in  the  work  of  the 
ministry."  After  he  had  completed  a  probation  of  five  years, 
he  received  and  accepted  a  call  to  become  the  ordained  pastor 
of  the  church.  As  making  provision  for  the  ordination  and  for 
the  increasing  needs  of  the  minister,  the  following  measures 
were  adopted  at  town  meetings  :  "  February  23,  1670,  Voted, 
that  Mr.  Buckingham  have  ten  acres  of  land  for  a  pasture  on 
the  East  side  of  Potopogue  highway  northward  on  the 
Common."  At  the  same  meeting,  "  Mr.  Wastoll  and  Wm. 
Pratt,  Senr.,  did  freely  offer  5  pounds  towards  the  charge  of 
Mr.  Buckingham's  ordination;  Robert  Chapman  doth  engage 
to  the  charge  above  said  2  pounds,  10  shillings;  Robert  Bate 
and  Goodman  Tousland  doth  engage  5  shillings." — "  March- 
1 6,  1670,  Voted,  that  every  100  pound  estate  shall  yearly 
carry  in  to  Mr.  Buckingham  a  load  of  good  wood ;  and  all 
under  the  estate  of  an  hundred,  to  cut  and  join  in  carting 
according  to  their  estate."  As  a  further  encouragement  to 
Mr.  Buckingham  in  entering  upon  his  work  as  an  ordained 
pastor,  a  committee  was  appointed  "  to  consider  the  capacity 
of  the  town  to  meet  the  cost  of  a  new  meeting-house."  The 
project,  however,  did  not  materialize  till  ten  years  later. 

Judging  from  the  custom  which  prevailed  in  making  up 
ordaining  councils,  it  may  be  quite  certainly  inferred  that  the 
churches  whose  pastors  and  lay-delegates  were  called  to 
assist  in  the  exercises  of  Mr.  Buckingham's  ordination  were 
the  following  in  the  immediate  neighborhood,  viz.:  the 
churches  of  Killingworth  (now  Clinton),  Guilford,  New- 
London,  Norwich  and  Middletown.  If  an  invitation  was 
extended  to  any  church  beyond  these  boundaries,  it  would 
doubtless  be  to  the  church  in  Hartford,  of  which  Mr.  Whiting 
was  pastor,  under  whose  instruction  Mr.  Buckingham  had 
pursued  his  studies.  Doctor  Trumbull,  in  his  History  of 


— 22 — 

"Connecticut,  on  the  authority  of  manuscript  testimony,  asserts 
that  "  a  council  of  ministers  and  churches  assisted  at  this 
ordination,"  but  that  "  the  imposition  of  hands  was  performed 
by  the  brethren,  as  it  had  been  before  in  the  ordination  of 
Mr.  Fitch.  The  council  considered  it  as  an  irregular  pro- 
ceeding, but  the  brethren  were  so  tenacious  of  what  they 
esteemed  their  right,  that  it  could  not  be  prevented  without 
much  inconvenience."  This  corroborates  what  I  have  said 
of  the  Congregationalism  of  this  church.  It  was  of  the  very 
strictest  type.  (H.) 

The  early  years  of  Mr.  Buckingham's  ministry,  and  indeed 
many  of  the  later  ones  as  well,  were  years  of  anxiety  and 
alarm  to  Connecticut,  by  reason  of  the  threatened  encroach- 
ments upon  her  territory  and  her  liberties,  and  of  Indian 
assaults  upon  her  settlements,  interfering  seriously  with  the 
prosperity  of  the  churches.  The  Duke  of  York,  by  virtue  of 
a  royal  charter,  laid  claim  to  a  large  section  of  the  territory 
which  had  been  granted  to  her  by  the  charter  of  1662. 
Among  other  acts,  he  commissioned  Sir  Edmund  Andross, 
his  most  unscrupulous  vassal,  to  enforce  his  claims  to  the 
fort  at  Saybrook.  This  attempt  seemed  to  have  been  de- 
signedly made  at  the  very  time  when  a  large  contingent  of 
Connecticut  troops  was  absent  in  active  service  in  the  Narra- 
gansett  war.  It  was  on  a  hot  July  morning  (the  8th)  in  1675, 
when  Mr.  Buckingham  was  summoned  to  consult  with  Robert 
Chapman,  captain  of  the  train  band,  who  had  charge  of  the 
fort  with  only  a  small  squad  of  men  under  his  command,  as 
to  what  was  best  to  be  done.  The  fleet  of  Sir  Edmund 
already  appeared  at  the  mouth  of  the  river,  and  his  design 
was  at  once  apparent.  The  result  of  the  consultation  was, 
that  a  swift  courier  was  despatched  to  Gov.  Winthrop  at 
Hartford  for  orders  and  advice.  And,  further,  tradition  says, 
that  the  parson  astride  his  horse  rallied  every  man  within 
reach  to  hasten  armed  to  the  fort  in  order  to  make  a  show  of 
resistance  until  relief  should  come.  The  women  also  were 
bidden  to  do  their  part  in  furnishing  supplies  of  food  for  those 
•who  were  thus  suddenly  called  into  service,  and  to  see  that 
partially  gathered  hay  crop  was  properly  cured  and 


—23— 

stored.  By  these  timely  measures,  and  the  prompt  response 
of  Gov.  Winthrop  to  hold  the  fort,  and  by  the  opportune 
arrival  of  a  military  force  in  command  of  Capt.  Thomas  Bull 
and  his  bold  and  cunning  strategy,  the  designs  of  Andross 
were  foiled  and  the  fort  saved.  Had  success  crowned  the 
designs  of  Andross,  it  would  doubtless  have  essentially 
changed  the  subsequent  history  as  well  as  the  territorial 
boundaries  of  Connecticut.  It  was  a  crisis  happily  passed. 
Mr.  Buckingham  proved  himself  to  be  just  the  man  for  the 
exigency  ;  and  his  letter  to  the  Council  of  the  Colony,  written 
soon  afterward,  giving  a  detailed  account  of  the  affair,  shows 
that  he  had  in  him  the  mettle  of  a  firm  and  brave  patriotism. 
(See  Col.  Rec.)  In  July  of  the  following  year,  application 
was  made  to  him  by  John  Allyn,  Secretary  of  the  Colony ,. 
"  desiring  him  to  goe  forth  with  the  army,  in  case  Mr.  Fitch 
should  fayle."  Whether  his  services  were  required  or  not 
does  not  appear. 

Although  the  erection  of  a  new  and  more  comfortable  house 
of  worship  was  in  contemplation  at  the  time  of  Mr.  Bucking- 
ham's ordination,  no  positive  action  was  taken  to  effect  this 
object  until  1676.  Much  diversity  of  views,  and  serious  con- 
tention prevailed,  as  to  whether  it  should  be  built  of  wood  or 
of  stone,  as  to  its  dimensions  and  finish,  and  especially  as  to 
its  location.  During  the  controversy,  Robert  Bull  gave  to 
the  town  for  a  site  a  piece  of  land  five  rods  square  from  the 
corner  of  his  lot,  and  a  vote  was  passed  to  build  the  meeting- 
house thereon.  But  dissatisfaction  sprang  up  and  the  vote 
was  rescinded.  At  length,  however,  after  two  and  a  half 
years  of  controversy,  an  agreement  was  reached  ;  and  it  was 
voted  that  the  house  should  be  a  frame  building,  60  feet  by 
30  feet  on  the  foundations  and  16  feet  high  ;  "  to  stand  near 
about  the  place  of  the  old  one;"  and  the  selectmen  were  em- 
powered to  employ  William  Bushnell,  Jr.,  to  do  the  work. 
The  bargain  with  Mr.  Bushnell  proved  to  be  a  losing  one  to 
him,  and  as  a  result  the  house  was  not  ready  for  occupancy 
till  near  the  close  of  the  year  1681.  After  its  dedication, 
"  Old  Goodman  Kirtland,  the  schoolmaster,  was  engaged  to 


—24— 

sweep  the  house  for  30  shillings  for  the  ensuing  year,  and  Mr. 
John  Wastoll  to  beat  the  drum  upon  Sabbath  and  town  meet- 
ing days  for  40  shillings." 

Although  this  house  was  a  great  improvement  upon  that 
Avhich  was  built  thirty-four  years  previously  on  the  score  of 
comfort  and  convenience,  it  could  make  no  pretence  to  style. 
Glass  was  doubtless  used  for  the  windows  instead  of  oiled 
paper.  The  seats  in  the  body  of  the  house  were  plain  wooden 
benches  and  were  "  dignified,"  or  assigned  to  members  of  the 
congregation  according  to  age,  rank,  office  or  estate.  Of  this 
custom  Whittier  speaks  : 

"  In  the  goodly  house  of  worship,  where  in  order  due  and  fit, 
As  by  public  vote  directed,  classed  and  ranked  the  people  sit ; 
Mistress  first  and  goodwife  after,  clerkly  squire  before  the  clown, 
From  the  brave  coat,  lace  embroidered,  to  the  gray  frock  shading  down." 

There  were  square  pews  on  each  side  of  the  pulpit,  the  one 
on  the  right  side  being  set  apart  for  the  minister's  family. 
Several  of  the  leading  men,  among  whom  were  Nathaniel 
Lynde  and  Nathaniel  Pratt,  were  given  permission  to  build 
square  pews  against  the  walls  of  the  audience  room.  William 
Tully  had  "  liberty  to  make  and  maintain  a  window  against 
his  pew."  The  pulpit  was  a  high  square  structure  furnished 
Avith  a  Geneva  Bible,  a  Bay  Psalm  Book,  and  an  hour-glass 
to  time  the  length  of  the  service  by.  Deacons  Francis  Bush- 
nell  and  William  Parker,  and,  after  the  death  of  the  former, 
Deacon  Nathaniel  Chapman,  sat  underneath  the  pulpit  where 
they  could  catch  its  more  perpendicular  droppings,  while  the 
leader  of  the  singing  started  the  tune  from  a  seat  near  the 
middle  of  the  house.  The  tything  man  took  his  position 
with  his  fox-tail  rod  of  office  where  he  could  best  oversee  the 
behavior  of  the  congregation.  In  the  cold  season  there  was 
no  warmth  except  that  which  the  worshipers  brought  with 
them  in  the  temperature  of  their  bodies  re-enforced  by  their 
footstoves,  save  that  which  was  generated  by  the  fervor  of 
their  devotions. 

The  closing  years  of  Mr.  Buckingham's  ministry  were 
*«narked  by  two  events  occurring  in  Saybrook  which  deserve 


—25— 

special  notice.  One  is  the  founding  of  the  institution  now 
known  as  "  Yale  University  " ;  the  other,  the  meeting  of  the 
Synod  which  framed  the  famous  "  Saybrook  Platform." 

The  settlers  of  New  England  had  scarcely  set  up  their 
homes  upon  this  soil  before  they  began  to  make  provision  for 
the  education  of  their  children.  Not  content  with  simply 
establishing  primary  schools,  they  founded  Harvard  College 
at  Cambridge,  within  seven  years  of  the  settlement  of  Boston. 
To  the  support  of  this  institution,  Connecticut,  in  proportion 
to  her  population  and  means,  bore  her  full  share.  But  after 
the  lapse  of  some  fifty  years,  the  question  began  to  be 
seriously  discussed,  whether  the  time  had  not  come  for  Con- 
necticut to  establish  a  Collegiate  School  of  her  own.  This 
idea  assumed  outward  form  at  a  meeting  of  Connecticut 
pastors  at  Branford,  in  September,  1701,  one  of  whom  was 
Mr.  Buckingham,  when  each  one  present  laid  down  upon  the 
table  a  gift  of  books,  saying,  "  I  give  these  books  to  found 
a  College  in  this  Colony."  These  pastors  appeared  as  peti- 
tioners at  the  next  session  of  the  General  Assembly  for  a 
•College  Charter,  which  was  granted  them.  On  the  nth  of 
November  following,  seven  of  the  men  who  were  constituted 
Trustees  under  this  charter  met  at  Saybrook,  and  laid  the 
foundation  of  the  noble  school  of  learning  which  afterwards 
was  named  in  honor  of  a  generous  benefactor — "  Yale 
College,"  and  subsequently  "  Yale  University." 

The  scope  of  a  history  of  this  Church  does  not  require 
that  I  should  rehearse  in  detail  the  varying  fortunes  of  this 
institution  during  the  sixteen  years  that  it  remained  here. 
Let  it  suffice,  if  I  specify  a  few  points  having  reference  to  this 
location  and  this  Church  and  community. 

It  is  to  the  honor  of  Nathaniel  Lynde,  a  member  of  this 
Church,  that  he  gave  to  the  College  the  use  of  a  house  and 
.lot  situated  just  west  of  the  cemetery,  as  long  as  it  should 
remain  in  Saybrook.  The  first  Commencement  was  held 
either  in  this  house  or  in  the  parsonage  of  Mr.  Buckingham, 
on  September  13,  1702,  "  at  which,"  says  President  Clap,  in 
his  Annals,  "  four  young  gentlemen,  who  had  before  been 
graduated  at  Cambridge,  and  one  more,  who  had  a  private 


—26— 

education,  received  the  Degrees  of  Master  of  Arts."  The~ 
first  person  instructed  here  who  was  advanced  to  a  Bachelor's- 
Degree  was  John  Hart,  afterwards  pastor  of  the  church  in> 
East  Guilford,  now  Madison,  in  this  State,  and  father  of  Rev. 
William  Hart,  one  of  the  pastors  of  this  Church. 

The  Trustees  were  not  unanimous  in  the  vote  locating  the 
institution  in  Saybrook.  New  Haven  wanted  it,  Hartford 
wanted  it,  Wethersfield  wanted  it.  The  rector,  Rev.  Abra- 
ham Pierson  of  Killingworth,  now  Clinton,  owing  to  the 
refusal  of  his  church  to  release  him  from  his  pastoral  rela- 
tion, instructed  the  Senior  Class  at  his  own  house.  Some  of 
the  students  studied  elsewhere  ;  only  one  or  two  tutors  gave 
instruction  here.  The  result  was  that  the  affairs  of  the 
College  continued  in  an  unsettled  state  until  October,  1716, 
when,  by  a  decisive  vote  of  the  Trustees,  it  was  transferred  to- 
New  Haven,  that  town  having  subscribed  more  generously 
for  its  furnishings  than  either  Saybrook  or  Hartford.  Until 
his  death  in  1709,  Mr.  Buckingham  was  the  presiding  genius 
of  the  infant  college.  In  the  matter  of  its  oversight  much 
more  was  due  to  him  than  to  the  Rector.  Kindly  in  his 
manners,  dignified  and  scholarly,  his  counsels  were  received 
with  deference  both  by  the  tutors  and  the  students.  Of  the 
fifty-five  young  men  who  were  graduated  while  it  remained 
here,  nine  were  natives  of  Saybrook.  Their  names  and 
spheres  of  life  are  as  follows:  Of  the  class  of  1705,  Rev. 
Samuel  Whittelsey,  pastor  of  the  church  in  Wallingford,  a 
distinguished  preacher,  and  a  trustee  of  the  College ;  Class 
of  1707,  Rev.  Daniel  Chapman,  pastor  of  the  church  in 
Green's  Farms  ;  Samuel  Lynde,  judge  of  the  New  London 
County  Court,  and  of  the  Superior  Court,  deputy  to  the 
General  Assembly  in  twelve  sessions,  and  a  member  of  the 
Upper  House  or  Council ;  Rev.  Daniel  Taylor,  pastor  of  the 
Presbyterian  church  in  Newark-Mountain,  now  Orange,  New 
Jersey;  Class  of  1714,  Joseph  Blague,  merchant  in  Saybrook, 
and  justice  of  the  peace,  also  deacon  of  this  Church  ;  Rev. 
Jedediah  Buckingham,  minister  of  the  church  in  Newark- 
Mountain  for  a  few  years,  though  not  settled ;  Nathaniel 
Clarke,  a  liberal  patron  of  the  College,  deputy  for  ten  years 


—27— 

to  the  General  Assembly,  and  justice  of  the  peace  in  Say- 
brook  ;  Rev.  Benjamin  Lord,  D.  D.,  pastor  of  the  first 
church  in  Norwich,  and  trustee  of  the  college;  Rev.  Joseph 
Willard,  pastor  of  the  church  in  Sunderland,  Mass.,  for  three 
years;  and  while  under  a  call  to  the  pastorate  of  the  church 
in  Rutland,  Mass.,  awaiting  the  day  of  his  installation,  was 
killed  and  scalped  by  a  party  of  Indians  at  the  age  of  27. 

The  Synod  which  framed  the  Saybrook  Platform  convened 
here  September  9,  1708.  It  was  called  by  an  order  of  the 
General  Assembly  of  the  Colony,  addressed  to  the  churches 
and  their  ministers,  "  to  consider  and  agree  upon  those 
methods  and  rules  for  the  management  of  ecclesiastical  dis- 
cipline, which  by  them  shall  be  judged  agreeable  and  con- 
formable to  the  word  of  God."  All  the  churches  within  the 
present  boundaries  of  the  state, — and  there  were  forty  of 
them, — were  nominally  Congregational,  with  the  exception  of 
one  Baptist  Church  in  Groton,  and  one  Episcopal  Church  in 
Stratford,  both  formed  the  year  before.  These  Congre- 
gational Churches  having  been  organized  in  newly  settled 
towns,  and  many  of  them  isolated  by  reason  of  their  distance 
from  one  another  and  the  roughness  of  the  roads,  had  largely 
lost  sight  of  the  principle  of  sympathetic  and  helpful  fellow- 
ship which  differentiates  Congregationalism  from  Independ- 
ency. They  faintly  recognized  any  common  bond  of  ecclesi- 
astical order.  Some  of  them,  like  the  Saybrook  church, 
adhered  to  the  strict  type  of  the  Cambridge  Platform.  Others 
held  to  what  was  called  a  more  "  large  Congregationalism"; 
while  a  few,  mostly  located  near  the  New  York  border,  were 
inclined  to  a  "  moderate  Presbyterianism."  What  they  needed 
was  unification  to  remedy  the  confusion  resulting  from  clash- 
ing methods  of  procedure  in  cases  ecclesiastical.  In  addition 
to  this,  owing  to  the  distractions  occasioned  by  Indian  wars 
and  the  unsettled  state  of  political  affairs,  there  prevailed 
much  looseness  of  religious  sentiment  and  a  low  tone  of  spirit- 
uality, which  it  was  thought  might  be  remedied  by  drawing 
more  tightly  the  reins  of  ecclesiastical  discipline. 

The  Synod  consisted  of  sixteen  members,  twelve  of  them 
leading  ministers  in  the  colony,  and  four  laymen,  two  of  the 


—28— 

latter  being  members  of  this  church,  viz. :  Robert  Chapman, 
son  of  the  settler,  and  Dea.  William  Parker.  The  venerable 
James  Noyes,  of  Stonington,  and  Mr.  Buckingham  were 
chosen  Moderators  of  the  body.  Besides  re-affirming  the 
Savoy  Confession  of  Faith  and  certain  "  Heads  of  Agreement" 
accepted  by  Congregationalists  and  Presbyterians  in  England 
in  1691,  there  was  adopted  a  Platform  of  Discipline  whose 
objects  were:  I. — The  promotion  of  order  and  harmony 
among  the  ministers  and  churches ;  2. — The  regular  intro- 
duction of  candidates  into  the  ministry ;  3. — The  establish- 
ment of  a  fixed  and  definite  board  of  appeal — the  County 
Consociation — a  council  by  which  such  difficulties  as  the 
particular  churches  themselves  could  not  settle,  might  be  ad- 
justed. This  Platform,  which  in  its  provisions  leans  quite 
strongly  towards  Presbyterianism,  has  been  supplanted  in  the 
last  fifty  years  by  the  more  genuine  Congregationalism  of  the 
fathers  of  New  England.  Adopted  as  a  compromise  and 
susceptible  of  a  stricter  or  looser  construction,  it  was  at  the 
time  accepted  by  most  of  the  churches ;  and  the  result  was  to 
bring  them  into  closer  fellowship,  unify  their  methods  and  so 
guard  them  against  defections.  (I.) 

Mr.  Buckingham's  relations  to  the  Indians  in  this  neighbor- 
hood were  always  pleasant,  and  in  a  remarkable  degree  he 
commanded  their  respect.  About  two  miles  north  of  this 
sanctuary  is  a  large  boulder,  called  "  Obed's  Altar,"  with 
which  a  tragic  legend  is  connected  of  an  Indian  and  his 
daughter  who  sacrificed  her  life  out  of  affection  for  her  lover. 
This  Indian — Obed  was  his  name — was  a  devoted  friend  of 
Mr.  Buckingham,  whom  he  always  made  a  sharer  of  a  choice 
portion  of  the  game  taken  in  his  hunting  excursions.  Atta- 
wanhood,  also,  a  son  of  Uncas,  the  noted  Mohegan  sachem, 
had  such  confidence  in  Mr.  Buckingham  as  to  name  him  one 
of  the  executors  of  his  will  and  one  of  the  guardians  of  his 
children.  He  directed  that  his  children  should  be  taught  in 
an  English  school  and  that  he,  himself,  should  be  buried 
in  Saybrook  after  the  manner  of  the  English.  These  are 
pleasant  testimonies  to  the  christianizing  influence  of  the  pastor 
over  these  untutored  sons  of  the  forest. 


—29— 

As  to  the  spiritual  prosperity  and  growth  of  this  church 
during  the  peculiarly  trying  and  critical  period  covered  by 
Mr.  Buckingham's  ministry,  we  have  no  authentic  records  to 
inform  us.  Besides  preaching  twice  upon  the  Sabbath,  he 
doubtless  conformed  to  the  recommendation  of  the  General 
Court  in  the  way  of  regularly  "  catechising  the  children  under 
the  age  of  twenty,"  and  "  keeping  a  lecture  weekly  on  the 
fourth  day  of  the  week."  What  was  termed  the  "  Half-way 
•Covenant,"  which  gave  to  parents  who  had  been  baptized  in 
infancy,  but  were  not  church  members,  the  privilege  of  having 
their  children  baptized,  was  probably  here  introduced  at  or 
near  the  beginning  of  his  pastorate.  This  church,  however, 
never  took  kindly  to  this  uncongregational  usage,  which 
proved  so  disastrous  to  experimental  piety,  and  the  custom 
barely  survived  the  two  succeeding  ministries.  (J.) 

On  such  evidence  as  is  at  hand  we  are  able  to  say  that  Mr. 
Buckingham's  memory  deserves  to  be  had  in  honor.  He 
guided  the  church  through  some  most  difficult  passages  in  its 
history,  occasioned  by  political  agitations  and  religious  de- 
clension, with  remarkable  wisdom  and  unremitted  fidelity. 
And  in  all  other  relations — as  a  citizen,  as  a  trustee  of  the 
college,  as  a  counselor  in  matters  pertaining  to  the  common 
welfare — his  career  was  marked  by  dignity  and  helpfulness  to 
•every  good  cause.  He  died  April  I,  1709,  in  the  sixty-third 
year  of  his  age,  after  having  filled  out  a  ministry  of  forty-four 
years.  It  is  a  matter  of  tradition  that  at  his  death  the  church 
numbered  forty-eight  members.  He  was  the  first  of  seven 
ministers  of  this  church  whose  remains  were  buried  in  the  old 
-cemetery  at  the  Point.  (K.) 

REV.  AZARIAH  MATHER,  the  third  ordained  pastor  of  this 
church,  was  the  son  of  Rev.  Samuel  Mather,  of  Windsor, 
Conn.,  where  he  was  born  August  29,  1685.  His  grandfather, 
Timothy  Mather,  was  the  eldest  son  of  Rev.  Richard  Mather, 
of  Dorchester,  Mass.,  and  the  brother  of  Rev.  Dr.  Increase 
Mather,  president  of  Harvard  College,  and  the  cousin  of  Rev. 
Dr.  Cotton  Mather,  who  is  distinguished  as  the  author  of 
the  "  Magnalia  Americana."  Rev.  Azariah  Mather's  mother 
was  Hannah,  daughter  of  Gov.  Robert  Treat,  of  Milford, 


_3o— 

Conn.  He  graduated  at  the  new  Collegiate  School  at  Say- 
brook  in  the  class  of  1705.  After  graduation  he  probably 
studied  theology  with  his  father.  Having  been  appointed 
tutor  in  the  college  in  September,  1709,  he  entered  upon  his 
tutorship  just  at  the  time  when  the  Saybrook  church  was 
looking  for  a  successor  to  Mr.  Buckingham,  then  recently 
deceased.  As  a  supply  for  the  pulpit  he  proved  himself 
acceptable,  and  at  a  town  meeting  held  December  2d  of  that 
year  he  received  a  call  to  the  pastorate.  The  question  of 
salary  caused  a  delay  of  his  acceptance  of  this  call  for  some 
four  months,  but  it  was  satisfactorily  settled  on  the  following 
terms :  he  was  to  receive  £80,  "  in  country  pay,"  yearly,  for 
two  years  ;  £100  for  the  next  two  ;  and  after  that  ;£i2O.  He 
finished  his  year's  service  in  the  college  and  was  ordained  as 
pastor  of  the  church,  November  21,  1710.  In  a  brief  histori- 
cal sketch,  Rev.  F.  W.  Hotchkiss  makes  this  note  respecting 
Mr.  Mather's  ordination  on  the  authority  of  "tradition" — 
"  The  lay  elders  insisted  on  their  right  to  impose  hands  with 
the  ministry,  and  they  were  admitted  accordingly."  On  the 
fifth  of  the  following  month  he  was  married  to  Martha, 
daughter  of  Daniel  Taylor,  Esq.,  of  this  town,  and  set  up  his 
family  altar  in  the  house  bought  of  the  heirs  of  Mr.  Bucking- 
ham, and  formerly  occupied  by  him. 

The  twenty -two  years  covered  by  the  ministry  of  Mr, 
Mather  were,  for  the  most  part,  years  of  peace  and  prosperity 
in  the  colony.  In  the  town  and  church  there  were  eventful 
changes.  In  1716,  the  pending  controversy  in  respect  to  the 
permanent  site  of  the  college  was  closed  by  its  removal  to- 
New  Haven,  a  decisive  vote  of  the  trustees  having  been  passed 
to  that  effect.  The  removal  produced  much  commotion  here, 
it  being  regarded  as  a  severe  blow  to  the  relative  importance 
and  prosperity  of  the  town. 

In  the  course  of  the  eight  or  nine  following  years,  two  other 
events  occurred  which  served  seriously  to  affect  the  size  and 
strength  of  this  church.  One  was  the  incorporation  of  the 
Second  Ecclesiastical  Society  of  Saybrook,  by  the  General 
Court,  May  22,  1722, — its  boundaries  including  the  northern 
part  of  the  town,  or  what  was  known  as  Pautapaug  -Quarter.. 


—31— 

"The  increasing  population  which  had  settled  within  these 
northern  limits  had  been  obliged  to  travel,  many  of  them  on 
foot,  eight  or  ten  miles,  in  order  to  attend  religious  services  at 
the  Point.  Their  petition  for  the  privileges  of  separate  relig- 
ious worship  was  a  reasonable  one.  The  Second  Church 
connected  with  this  new  society  at  Pautapaug  Center,  now 
Centerbrook,  was  organized  November  16,  1725,  of  which 
Rev.  Abraham  Nott  was  the  first  pastor.  He  was  the  grand- 
father of  the  Rev.  Drs.  Eliphalet  Nott,  President  of  Union 
College,  and  Samuel  Nott,  pastor  of  the  church  in  Franklin, 
Conn.  No  records  of  the  organization  of  the  Second  Church 
are  extant.  A  roughly  built  meeting-house  hastily  put  up 
was  occupied,  it  is  said,  nearly  a  year  before  a  permanent 
floor  was  laid. 

A  third  Ecclesiastical  Society  in  the  southwestern  section  of 
the  town  was  incorporated  May  14,  1724,  and  the  Westbrook 
•Church  was  organized  therein,  June  29,  1726,  consisting  of  six 
male  and  eight  female  members.  Rev.  William  Worthington 
at  once  entered  upon  pastoral  work  among  them.  By  the 
establishment  of  these  two  new  churches,  the  mother  church 
must  have  lost  at  least  one-third  of  her  membership  and  a  like 
proportion  of  her  financial  strength.  The  necessity  of  changing 
the  location  of  its  house  of  worship  was  thus  made  strikingly 
apparent.  The  old  house,  built  forty-five  years  before,  was 
much  dilapidated  and  through  the  extension  of  the  area  of 
population  into  the  Oyster  River  Quarter  and  towards  the 
Ferry,  its  extreme  southeastern  position  was  increasingly 
unsatisfactory.  Contemporaneously  with  the  formation  of  the 
two  new  ecclesiastical  societies,  measures  were  therefore  taken 
to  erect  a  new  meeting-house  more  centrally  located.  By  the 
generosity  of  John  Pratt  and  his  son  Isaac  Pratt,  the  triangu- 
lar lot  of  land  immediately  opposite  this  present  sanctuary 
was  donated  to  the  ecclesiastical  society  and  accepted  as  a 
most  appropriate  site — lying  as  it  did  at  the  junction  of  the 
highways  along  which  from  three  directions  the  congregation 
-would  be  obliged  to  travel. 

In  style  and  finish    the  new   house   was   superior  to  the 
-common  architecture  of  the  times.     Its  dimensions  were  38 


—32— 


The  Third  Meetirg-Bouse.    Erected  in  1726  atd  taken  down  in  1840. 


—33— 

feet  by  48  feet,  and  its  cost  ,£450,  or  about  $1,600.  It  stood 
on  an  east  and  west  line  with  a  large  front  door  on  the  south 
side,  and  doors  also  on  the  ends,  to  which  the  ascent  from  the 
ground  was  by  large  semicircular  door-steps  of  brown  stone. 
On  entering  the  south  front  door,  the  high  pulpit  was  seen 
against  the  north  side  of  the  audience  room,  with  a  huge 
sounding-board  suspended  over  it,  both  elaborately  finished 
with  panels  and  moldings.  The  deacons'  seat  was  underneath 
the  pulpit.  The  sittings  were  square  pews  in  which  the  older 
and  the  very  young  members  of  a  family  could  sit  together, 
though  with  this  inconvenience,  that  some  must  sit  sideways 
and  others  with  their  backs  to  the  pulpit.  The  pulpit  stairs 
were  usually  filled  with  small  boys,  the  upper  stair  being 
regarded  as  the  place  of  honor,  enabling  the  occupant  to  open 
the  pulpit  door  to  the  minister  as  he  ascended  to  his  seat.  A 
line  of  small  girls  usually  occupied  a  low  seat  attached  to  the 
front  side  of  the  pews  in  the  body  of  the  house  which  were 
nearest  to  the  pulpit. 

From  the  southeast  and  southwest  corners  of  the  audience 
room,  stairs  ascended  to  the  wide  heavy  gallery — the  former 
to  the  east  gallery,  which  was  appropriated  exclusively  to 
females,  the  latter  to  the  west  gallery,  which  was  appropriated 
exclusively  to  males.  The  singers  occupied  the  front  tier  of 
seats  on  the  three  sides  of  the  gallery,  behind  which  on  the 
south  side  there  were  four  square  pews  regarded  by  many  as 
most  desirable  sittings,  especially  by  some  of  the  young 
people  of  both  sexes,  who  often  used  them  for  social  purposes 
not  contributive  to  devotion,  or  to  the  edification  of  themselves 
or  of  others.  (L.j 

At  the  head  of  each  flight  of  stairs  there  was  a  pew  set 
apart  to  the  colored  people,  who  were  not  allowed  to  sit  else- 
where. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Society  held  September 
25,  1832,  it  was  voted  "  that  individuals  of  the  Society  have 
leave  to  place  a  stove  or  stoves,  with  suitable  pipes,  in  the 
meeting-house  for  the  purpose  of  warming  it  on  days  of 
public  meetings,  under  the  direction  of  the  committee." 
Thus  it  was  that,  for  one  hundred  and  eighty-six  years,  the 


—34— 

inhabitants  of  this  parish  attended  public  worship  in  a  house 
unwarmed  by  any  artificial  heat  except  that  of  an  occasional 
foot-stove. 

The  building,  as  at  first  completed  in  1726,  was  without  a 
steeple  or  a  bell.  A  steeple,  the  base  of  which  projected 
beyond  the  east  end  of  the  building  and  there  formed  a  porch 
or  entry,  was  added  in  1793,  and  a  bell  hung  in  it  the  follow- 
ing year.  Until  the  old  sanctuary  was  taken  down  in  1 840, 
the  ringing  from  the  belfry  seldom  failed  to  notify  the  people 
when  the  dinner  hour  at  noon  had  come,  and  also  during  the 
winter  when  it  was  time  to  go  to  bed,  at  nine  in  the  evening. 
There  was  something  picturesquely  attractive  to  my  eyes  in 
that  ancient  structure.  What  a  story  it  could  tell !  What 
eventful  changes  had  passed  over  its  venerable  head  during 
the  one  hundred  and  fourteen  years  that  it  did  service  here  ! 
The  training  of  nearly  four  generations  of  souls  for  heaven 
belongs  to  this  eventful  history.  Its  valedictory  was  preached 
by  Rev.  Mr.  Hotchkiss,  December  29,  1839,  from  Numbers 
ix,  1 7th  and  i8th  verses. 

Mr.  Mather  continued  to  serve  the  church  until  June, 
1732,  when  he  was  dismissed  by  a  council;  but  he  resided 
here  until  his  death,  February  11,  1737,  in  his  fifty-second 
year.  At  the  time  of  his  dismissal,  the  church  numbered 
forty-eight  members, — of  whom  fifteen  were  males  and  thirty- 
three  females.  This  is  the  earliest  authentic  enumeration  of 
the  membership. 

With  regard  to  Mr.  Mather's  character  and  standing,  the 
church  records  testify  that  he  was  "  an  able,  eloquent  and 
commanding  divine."  Dr.  David  D.  Field  says  of  him, 
"  As  a  linguist,  he  greatly  excelled  ;"  and  Rev.  F.  W.  Hotch- 
kiss, one  of  his  successors,  describes  him  as  "  a  very  pungent 
preacher,  and  fearless  reprover."  In  the  inscription  upon  his 
tombstone  he  is  characterized  as  "  a  faithfull  minister,  a  gen- 
erall  scholar,  an  eminent  Christian,  a  very  great  sufferer,  but 
now  in  glory  a  triumpher."  Seven  printed  sermons  are 
named  as  the  products  of  his  pen,  and  one  in  Latin  is  spoken 
of  on  being  "  Baptized  for  the  dead,"  from  i  Cor.  xv. :  29, 
which  probably  was  never  put  into  type.  His  wife  survived  him 


—35— 

with  one  son  and  four  daughters ;  and  the  names  of  several  of 
his  descendants  are  at  present  upon  the  church  roll.  During 
his  ministry,  Joseph  Blague  was  chosen  in  1725  to  fill  the 
office  of  deacon  made  vacant  by  the  death  of  Dea.  William 
Parker;  and  in  1726  Andrew  Lord  was  chosen  to  the  same 
office  on  the  death  of  Dea.  Nathaniel  Chapman. 

After  an  interval  of  a  little  more  than  four  years,  MR. 
WILLIAM  HART  was  ordained  as  the  fourth  settled  incumbent 
of  the  pastoral  office  in  this  church.  He  was  of  unmixed 
Puritan  ancestry,  the  great-grandson  of  Stephen  Hart,  an  emi- 
grant from  Braintree,  Essex  County,  England,  and  a  leader 
among  the  early  settlers  of  Farmington,  in  this  state — the  first 
deacon  also  of  the  church  there.  His  father  was  Rev.  John 
Hart,  the  first  pastor  of  the  church  in  East  Guilford,  now 
Madison,  who,  as  already  stated  in  another  connection,  was 
the  first  student  in  the  Collegiate  School  established  here  that 
received  the  bachelor's  degree,  and  who,  according  to  the 
historian  of  Guilford,  subsequently  became  "  one  of  the  first 
eminence  of  preachers  in  his  day."  Mr.  William  Hart's 
mother  was  Rebecca,  daughter  of  John  Hubbard,  a  prominent 
merchant  of  Boston,  and  a  granddaughter  of  the  distinguished 
historian,  Rev.  William  Hubbard.  He  was  the  elder  child  of 
his  parents,  born  in  East  Guilford,  May  9,  1713. 

After  graduation  at  Yale  in  the  class  of  1732,  Mr.  William 
Hart  pursued  the  study  of  theology  in  the  college,  where  he 
filled  the  position  of  butler  for  two  years  from  September, 
1734.  In  1736  he  received  and  accepted  a  call  to  the  pastor- 
ate of  this  church,  over  which  he  was  ordained  on  the  I7th 
of  November  of  that  year.  The  ordination  sermon  was 
preached  by  Rev.  Jared  Elliot,  of  Killingworth,  now  Clinton. 
His  ministerial  life  here  lasted  nearly  forty-eight  years,  during 
which  he  held  fast  the  united  affections  of  his  people.  As  old 
age  came  upon  him,  his  failing  health,  by  reason  of  paralysis, 
disqualified  him  for  active  service,  and,  as  a  consequence,  Mr. 
Frederick  W.  Hotchkiss  was  settled  as  a  colleague  about  ten 
months  before  his  death,  which  occurred  on  Sunday,  July  II, 
1784,  he  being  in  the  seventy-second  year  of  his  age. 


-36- 

On  the  8th  of  June,  1742,  some  five  years  and  a  half  after 
his  ordination,  Mr.  Hart  took  for  a  helpmeet,  Mary,  daughter 
of  Dea.  Joseph  Blague,  of  this  church,  through  whom  he  was 
blessed  with  a  family  of  nine  children — five  sons  and  four 
daughters.  His  residence  was  situated  on  the  west  side  of 
our  Main  Street,  north  of  the  house,  still  standing,  built  and 
occupied  by  his  youngest  son,  the  late  Capt.  Elisha  Hart,  and 
in  so  close  proximity  to  it  that,  it  is  said,  the  eldest  child  of 
this  son,  soon  after  her  birth,  was  shown  to  the  grandparents, 
through  an  open  window. 

During  the  period  embraced  within  the  long  ministry  of 
Mr.  Hart,  the  country  was  shaken  with  violent  social'  and 
political  movements  which  greatly  disturbed  the  peace  and 
hindered  the  growth  of  the  churches.  The  two  "old  French 
wars,"  which  had  for  their  object  the  establishment  of  French 
domination  in  America — one  beginning  in  1740,  and  ending 
in  1748  with  the  treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle;  and  the  other 
opening  in  1755,  and  resulting  in  the  English  conquest  of 
Canada  in  1760,  and  thus  saving  the  future  occupants  of  this 
soil  from  becoming  the  vassals  of  a  fanatical  despot — levied 
heavily  upon  the  property  and  blood  of  Saybrook  in  common 
with  other  towns  in  the  colony.  Afterward  occurred  the 
great  and  critical  struggle  of  the  united  colonies  for  independ- 
ence of  Great  Britain,  lasting  from  April  9,  1775,  when  the 
first  blood  was  shed  in  the  streets  of  Lexington,  to  the  same 
day  and  month  in  1783,  when  a  proclamation  was  issued  to- 
the  army  announcing  the  signing  of  the  treaty  of  peace  at 
Paris.  These  eight  years  were  years  of  such  excitement  and 
anxiety  as  it  is  difficult  now  to  realize.  The  people  hacl 
staked  their  all  on  the  result  and  they  were  in  deadly  earnest. 
Burdens  were  laid  upon  them  which  nothing  but  a  sublime 
patriotism  and  a  lofty  religious  principle  enabled  them  to  bear. 
At  the  same  time,  among  a  portion  of  the  population,  the 
breaking  up  of  regular  home  life  incidental  to  service  in  the 
army,  and  the  spread  of  infidel  sentiments  through  association 
with  our  French  allies,  operated  disastrously  to  the  cause  of 
morals  and  religion.  Through  all  these  unpropitious  and 


—37— 

trying  scenes,  Mr.   Hart  stood  calmly  at  his  post  of  duty,, 
ministering  to  his  flock  according  to  their  need. 

Apart  from  the  spiritual  welfare  of  his  parish,  there  were  no 
subjects  which  awakened  so  deep  an  interest  in  the  mind  of 
Mr.  Hart  as  the  questions  of  theology  and  ecclesiastical  order, 
which  in  his  days  were  agitating  the  churches.  There  was  a 
sharp  line  of  division  drawn  between  a  conservative  party 
which  adhered  to  the  old  established  views  of  Christian 
doctrine  and  the  ecclesiastical  methods  sanctioned  by  usage, 
and  a  party  of  "  reform,"  which  regarded  the  accepted  views 
as  erroneous  and  the  old  methods  as  outgrown  and  unsuited 
to  the  times — between  those  who  were  called  "  Old  Lights,'" 
and  those  termed  "  New  Lights."  In  his  "  Biographical 
Sketches  of  the  Graduates  of  Yale  College,"  F.  B.  Dexter 
says  of  Mr.  Hart,  "  He  belonged  to  and  was  one  of  the 
coolest-headed  and  shrewdest  of  the  conservative  'Old  Light' 
school  of  clergymen,  who  looked  with  distrust  on  all  attempted 
reformations  of  principles  or  religious  manners." 

The  Great  Revival,  which  began  its  course  in  1740  and" 
continued  through  several  succeeding  years,  furnished  the  first 
occasion  for  bringing  into  manifestation  the  conflict  of  opinion 
between  these  two  parties.  The  New  Lights  favored  the 
revival,  while  the  Old  Lights  looked  upon  it  with  serious 
apprehension  and  distrust,  and  many  of  them  opposed  it.  The 
distrust  and  opposition  were  occasioned  in  part  by  loose  and 
superficial  views  of  Christian  doctrine  taught  by  the  promoters 
of  the  revival,  but  in  a  larger  degree  by  the  measures  em- 
ployed. In  1741,  Mr.  Hart  prepared  and  published  "A 
Discourse  on  James  i:  18,  Concerning  the  Nature  of  Regen- 
eration and  the  Way  Wherein  it  is  Wrought."  in  order  as  he 
says,  "to  lead  the  ignorant  into  a  true  knowledge  of  the 
Scripture  doctrine  of  regeneration,  and  establish  the  minds  of 
those  who  know  and  believe  the  truth  and  to  guard  them 
against  some  errors  which  I  apprehend  many  people  are  in* 
danger  of  at  this  day."  This  is  a  soundly  orthodox  and 
scriptural  discourse,  and  gives  evidence  that  the  congrega- 
tion to  which  he  ministered  was  faithfully  instructed  in  the 
Christian  faith.  Two  years  later,  with  a  design  to  correct 


-38- 

false  views  which  were  in  vogue,  he  wrote  and  published 
another  discourse  entitled,  "  The  Holy  Scriptures  the  Com- 
pleat  and  Only  Rule  of  Religious  Faith  and  Practice,  on 
2  Tim.  iii :  16-17." 

As  we  cast  our  eyes  backward  we  can  easily  see  that  there 
were  two  sides  to  this  revival.  At  its  commencement  the 
ministers  and  churches  were  totally  unprepared  for  such  a 
tremendous  upheaval.  They  had  never  known  anything  like 
it.  And  hence  it  is  not  strange  that  in  the  interests  of  pure 
religion  they  were  honestly  driven  into  opposite  extremes  of 
approval  or  of  opposition,  according  to  their  different  points 
of  view.  The  waking  up  of  the  churches  from  a  state  of 
formality  and  declension,  the  reformation  of  morals  and  the 
conversion  of  thousands  of  souls  to  Christ,  constituted  a 
blessing,  the  value  of  which  could  not  be  overestimated. 
Those  who  fixed  their  eyes  on  this  side  of  the  picture  were 
constrained  to  accord  their  approval  and  give  their  coopera- 
tion. On  the  other  hand,  there  were  mingled  with  these 
good  results  so  many  errors  and  extravagances  and  disorders, 
that  to  many  observers  it  was  questionable  whether,  in  the 
long  run,  religion  was  not  losing  more  than  it  gained.  One 
of  the  first  exhibitions  of  disorder  was  the  entrance  into  the 
field  of  a  company  of  uneducated  men  who  pushed  themselves 
boldly  forward  into  direct  collision  with  the  regular  ministers 
and  their  churches — men  who  depended  on  inward  impulses 
and  impressions  of  an  abnormal  type,  rather  than  upon  truth 
and  reason,  as  evidence  that  they  spoke  and  acted  under  the 
direct  guidance  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  These  were  followed  by 
.a  class  of  itinerating  clergymen  who,  having  given  up  their 
own  pastoral  charges,  traveled  up  and  down  in  the  land, 
haranguing  the  people  where  they  could  gather  a  crowd, 
denouncing  those  settled  ministers  who  did  not  endorse  their 
measures,  pronouncing  them  unconverted  and  advising  the 
setting  up  of  separate  worship.  The  consequences  were  most 
disastrous  to  the  peace  of  many  communities  and  were 
marked  by  contention,  confusion  and  the  division  of  churches 
formerly  united  and  prosperous. 


—39— 

Among  the  most  conspicuous  and  mischievous  of  these 
itinerants  was  Rev.  James  Davenport,  a  great-grandson  of  the 
celebrated  John  Davenport,  founder  and  first  minister  of  the 
church  of  New  Haven,  and  a  college  classmate  of  Mr.  Hart. 
He  was  pastor  of  a  church  in  Southold,  Long  Island,  and  on 
hearing  of  the  wonderful  success  of  Rev.  George  Whitefield, 
as  a  traveling  evangelist,  he  was  seized  with  an  irrepressible 
ambition  to  become  an  imitator  of  his  methods,  and  thus  to 
produce  like  results.  But  like  all  imitators  of  highly  endowed 
men,  he  proved  to  be  a  caricature  of  his  model.  He  was, 
however,  a  great  favorite  of  Whitefield,  who,  according  to  Rev. 
Andrew  Croswell,  declared  that  he  "  never  knew  one  keep  so 
close  a  walk  with  God  as  Mr.  Davenport."  Mr.  Tennent 
affirmed  Mr.  Davenport  to  be  "  one  of  the  most  heavenly  men 
he  ever  was  acquainted  with."  And  yet  this  man,  driven  by 
an  ambition  to  be  a  leader,  fanatical  in  his  measures  and 
violent  against  all  who  withheld  their  approval  of  him, 
scattered  firebrands  of  strife  among  the  churches  and  helped 
to  provoke  the  opposition  which  brought  the  revival  to  an 
end.  In  his  peregrinations  he  came  to  Saybrook  on  the  25th 
of  August,  1741,  and  requested  permission  of  Mr.  Hart  to 
preach  in  his  pulpit.*  Mr.  Hart,  who  in  college  had  known 
him  well  and  had  heard  much  of  his  recent  wild  and  extrava- 
gant measures,  asked  him  if  it  was  his  practice,  as  reported,  to 
condemn  ministers  as  unconverted.  He  replied  that  it  was. 
Mr.  Hart  then  asked  him  on  what  evidence  he  condemned 
them.  Instead  of  answering  this  question,  he  stated  the 
object  for  which  he  did  it — which  was  for  the  purification  of 
the  churches,  and  the  discovery  of  the  unconverted,  that  they 
might  be  avoided.  He  avowed  that  he  encouraged  the  estab- 
lishment of  separate  meetings  of  the  converted,  and  the  labors 
of  itinerant  exhorters.  After  a  vain  attempt  to  procure  some 
concession  from  him,  Mr.  Hart  refused  him  the  use  of  the 
pulpit.  Davenport  then  said  to  his  attendants,  "  Come,  let  us 
go  forth  without  the  camp  after  the  Lord  Jesus,  bearing  his 
reproach.  O,  'tis  pleasant  to  suffer  reproach  for  the  blessed 

*Chauncey's  State  of  Religion  in  New  England.     Ed.  1743,  p.  152. 


—40— 

Jesus!  Sweet  Jesus!"  The  next  day  Mr.  Hart,  in  company 
with  Mr.  Worthington  of  Westbrook,  Mr.  Nott  of  Pautipaug, 
and  Mr.  Beckwith  of  Hamburgh,  neighboring  pastors,  called 
upon  him  for  the  purpose  of  conversing  with  him  respecting 
his  methods.  He  vehemently  denounced  them  as  "  uncon- 
verted men,"  "  blind  guides,"  "  wolves  in  sheep's  clothing " 
and  the  like,  and  then  left  them  to  attend  a  meeting  in  the 
neighborhood.  Thus  the  "  great  work  "  which  he  boasted  he 
was  going  to  do  in  Saybrook  came  to  naught.  Mr.  Hart's 
discretion  and  firmness  carried  him  and  his  people  safely 
through  this  trial.  Rev.  Mr.  Hotchkiss,  Mr.  Hart's  successor, 
who  doubtless  had  often  heard  the  story  repeated,  adds  the 
following  particulars  in  his  half-century  sermon  :  "  The  high 
zeal  of  Davenport,  accompanied  by  numbers  from  other  places 
who  followed  in  his  train,  as  they  passed  through  the  streets 
hymning  their  sacred  songs  and  encompassed  this  sanctuary, 
denouncing  the  coldness  of  the  people,  all  evanesced  without 
leaving  any  impression  but  that  of  its  being  a  spirit  of  fanati- 
cism." 

Some  ten  or  fifteen  years  after  the  excitement  in  respect  to 
the  Great  Revival  had  subsided,  the  theological  world  was 
greatly  stirred  up  by  the  doctrinal  novelties  propounded  and 
published  by  Dr.  Stephen  West,  of  Stockbridge,  Mass.,  Dr. 
Joseph  Bellamy,  of  Bethlehem,  Conn.,  and  especially  by  Dr. 
Samuel  Hopkins,  of  Newport,  R.  I.,  on  the  subjects  of  Moral 
Agency,  Depravity,  Atonement  and  Disinterested  Benevolence. 
Mr.  Hart,  who  was  by  nature  a  conservative  and  clung  to  the 
-Calvinism  of  the  Savoy  or  Saybrook  Confession,  entered  with 
zeal  into  the  controversy  which  these  novelties  provoked.  He 
defended  his  positions  in  several  pamphlets  with  rare  logical 
acumen.  And  although  the  Calvinism  of  the  Confession  has 
since  undergone  modifications  in  the  faith  of  the  churches, 
some  of  his  objections  to  the  "  New  Divinity  "  of  his  day  have 
stood  the  test  of  time.  It  is  said  that  he  originated  the  term 
"  Hopkinsianism,"  as  applied  to  the  scheme  of  doctrine  which 
he  opposed.  As  a  result  of  the  conflict  between  these  types 
-of  doctrine,  it  may  be  said  that  while  the  Hopkinsian  scheme 


—41— 

has  been  modified  in  its  sharper  features,  it  has  left  its  deep 
impress  upon  the  accepted  theology  of  the  day. 

Another  subject,  which  enlisted  the  zeal  and  pen  of  Mr. 
Hart,  was  the  famous  "  Wallingford  Controversy  " — a  subject 
of  so  much  importance  in  the  view  of  Dr.  Trumbull  that  in  his 
"  History  of  Connecticut "  he  devoted  to  it  an  entire  chapter. 
The  case  involved  so  many  complications  that  it  cannot  be 
treated  here  in  detail  except  so  far  as  to  show  Mr.  Hart's  con- 
nection with  it.  Stated  in  brief,  the  case  was  this  : 

Mr.  James  Dana,  a  resident  of  Cambridge,  Mass.,  came  to 
Wallingford  with  the  best  credentials  as  a  candidate  for  the 
pastorate,  which  for  several  years  had  been  vacant.  A  call 
was  extended  to  him  with  apparent  harmony,  which  he 
accepted,  and  "  letters  missive "  were  issued  in  the  regular 
way  for  the  convening  of  a  council  for  his  ordination  on  the 
nth  of  October,  1758.  At  this  stage  of  the  proceedings,  Mr. 
Dana,  being  in  sympathy  with  the  "  Old  Light "  party  of  the 
times,  was  confronted  by  an  organized  opposition  of  a  minority 
in  the  Wallingford  church  and  society,  instigated,  as  was  be- 
lieved, by  "New  Light"  ministers  in  the  neighborhood.  With 
a  view  to  hinder  his  ordination,  the  Consociation  of  New  Haven 
County  was  by  request  hastily  convened  at  Wallingford  on 
the  very  day  appointed  for  the  meeting  of  the  ordaining 
Council.  It  was  a  memorable  day.  The  Consociation,  with 
the  assumed  authority  of  a  Presbyterian  Court,  forbade  the 
Council  from  proceeding,  on  grounds  that  were  regarded  as 
unreasonable.  No  explanations  and  no  concessions  short  of 
absolute  surrender  to  this  authority  availed  to  satisfy  the 
opposition.  The  Council  thereupon,  regarding  itself  as  in  the 
right,  went  forward  and  set  Mr.  Dana  in  his  place,  where  he 
served  the  church  for  a  period  of  more  than  thirty  years  and 
until  dismissed  on  account  of  ill  health.  The  sentence  of  non- 
communion,  which  the  Consociation  hurled  against  Mr.  Dana, 
the  Wallingford  church  and  those  who  took  part  in  the  ordi- 
nation, was  harmless,  but  it  proved  a  boomerang,  recoiling 
upon  the  high  assumptions  of  authority  on  the  part  of  the 
Consociation.  The  new  pastor  proved  to  be  a  man  of  great 
talents  and  learning  and  of  eminent  public  usefulness,  and  at 


—42— 

an  early  age  was  honored  with  a  theological  doctorate  by  the 
University  of  Edinburgh.  Subsequently  he  filled  the  office  of 
pastor  of  the  First  Church,  New  Haven,  for  sixteen  and  a  half 
years.  Into  this  controversy  Mr.  Hart  threw  himself  with 
effective  force,  sustaining  the  action  of  the  ordaining  Council 
in  two  strong  pamphlets,  in  which  the  scintillations  from  his 
pen  were  sparkles  of  the  strict  Congregationalism  of  this 
church  which  brooked  no  higher  ecclesiastical  authority  under 
Christ  than  itself.  Not  only  did  he  denounce  the  action  of 
the  Consociation  with  his  pen  as  being  uncongregational  and 
unreasonable,  but  in  utter  disregard  of  the  sentence  of  non- 
communion,  he  continued  as  the  occasion  offered  to  hold 
fellowship  with  the  Wallingford  church  by  preaching  in  its 
pulpit  and  administering  the  sacraments.  For  this  both  he 
and  Rev.  John  Devotion,  of  Westbrook,  who  was  in  full  sym- 
pathy with  him,  were  complained  of  before  the  Western 
Association  of  New  London  County,  to  which  they  belonged. 
The  Association,  having  carefully  examined  the  case,  unani- 
mously decided  that  "  we  do  not  judge  our  brethren  guilty  of 
censurable  conduct." 

Besides  the  publications  already  referred  to,  Mr.  Hart  put 
forth  a  pamphlet  in  1771  criticizing  President  Edwards'  "  Dis- 
sertations Concerning  the  Nature  of  True  Virtue,"  and  in1 
1772,  another  in  "Answer  to  the  Question,  What  are  the 
Necessary  Qualifications  for  a  Lawful  and  Approved  Attend- 
ance on  the  Sacraments  of  the  New  Covenant  ? " — twelve 
publications  in  all. 

The  closing  period  of  his  active  ministry  was  the  period  of 
the  War  of  the  American  Revolution,  to  the  effects  of  which 
upon  morals  and  religion  I  have  already  alluded.  The  com- 
munity which  composed  this  Christian  congregation  was  irt. 
its  infancy  cradled  in  a  military  fort,  and  in  its  earlier  history 
was,  by  its  exposed  situation,  trained  to  courage  and  skill  in 
the  use  of  arms  in  defense  of  its  homes  and  liberties.  As 
might  have  been  anticipated,  it  answered  with  promptness  the 
call  for  troops  in  the  struggle  for  independence  of  the  British 
Crown.  This  is  not  the  place  for  repeating  the  names,  even  if 
they  had  all  been  preserved,  and  for  recounting  the  self- 


—43— 

sacrifices  and  deeds  of  valor  of  those  members  of  this  church 
and  congregation  who  took  part  in  this  struggle.  But  it  is 
specially  pertinent  to  state  that  of  the  five  sons  of  Mr.  Hart, 
three  did  service  in  the  army.  The  eldest  son,  William, 
known  as  Gen.  Hart,  enlisted  in  1776  and  was  chosen  as 
sergeant  of  a  company  of  militia  in  garrison  at  Fort  Schuyler. 
Afterwards  he  was  appointed  as  major-commandant  of  a 
battalion  of  Light  Horse,  which  was  present  at  Danbury  at 
the  time  of  Tryon's  raid.  His  brother  Joseph  was  upon  his 
staff  as  adjutant.  John,  the  third  son,  was  first  lieutenant  of 
Capt.  Elisha  Chapman's  company  enlisted  here,  which  was: 
engaged  in  the  battles  of  Long  Island  and  White  Plains.  The 
patriotic  spirit  of  Mr.  Hart  was  doubtless  reflected  in  that  of 
his  sons  and  of  his  flock.  He  survived  the  proclamation  of 
peace  about  fifteen  months. 

In  summing  up  the  character  and  work  of  Mr.  Hart,  I  cite 
the  testimony  of  Dr.  David  D.  Field,  that  he  "  was  prudent 
and  judicious  in  the  management  of  his  flock,  and  enjoyed  to 
an  uncommon  degree  their  affection  and  esteem."  His  suc- 
cessor, Rev.  F.  W.  Hotchkiss,  says  of  him  :  "  This  venerated 
father  in  the  ministry  was  highly  esteemed  in  council  by  his 
brethren  and  the  churches.  By  his  talents  and  prudence  he 
had  a  commanding  influence  in  conducting  the  concerns  of 
his  church  and  people,  and  retained  their  united  affection 
through  a  ministry  of  nearly  forty-eight  years."  Rev.  John 
Devotion,  of  Westbrook,  who  preached  his  funeral  sermon, 
represents  him  as  a  man  of  large  charity  and  of  conscientious 
fidelity.  "  Being  mighty  in  the  Scriptures,  which  he  had 
known  from  his  youth,  he  was  able  to  teach  and  he  gave  to 
each  a  portion  in  due  season.  And  to  grace  the  whole,  he 
lived  and  practiced  the  religion  which  he  taught."  In  his 
physique  he  was  a  tall,  courtly,  fine-looking  man,  with  address 
and  manners  which  secured  respect  and  won  confidence. 
"  He  was  blessed  with  bright  intellectual  powers,  which,  im- 
proved by  a  liberal  education,  rendered  him  an  able  scholar 
in  the  Greek  and  Latin  languages ;  in  logic  he  discerned 
between  true  and  false  reasoning  and  sophistry  with  great 
precision ;  in  church  history  and  acquaintance  with  human 


—44— 

nature  he  excelled.  Rare  prudence  directed  his  steps  and 
preserved  him  ;  perfectly  master  of  himself  and  of  his  passions, 
he  seldom  gave  offence ;  savory  in  conversation,  yet  facetious 
at  suitable  times." 

He  relied  for  the  success  of  his  ministry  upon  the  regular 
preaching  of  the  word  and  pastoral  visitation,  rather  than 
upon  special  occasional  efforts.  A  mid-week  lecture  and 
lessons  in  the  catechism  for  the  children  were  ordinarily  the 
only  religious  services  which  he  held  besides  those  appointed 
for  the  Sabbath.  At  the  opening  of  his  pastorate  the  church 
numbered  forty-eight  members — fifteen  males,  thirty-three 
females.  At  the  close  the  number  was  sixty-nine — thirty- 
one  males,  thirty-eight  females.  The  whole  number  received 
by  him  was  one  hundred  and  eighty-nine.  Among  the 
present  members  of  this  church  there  are  several  who  trace 
their  line  of  descent  from  him  as  their  ancester.  Vacancies  in 
the  diaconate  during  his  ministry  were  filled  by  the  choice  of 
Joshua  Bushnell  in  1742,  Hezekiah  Whittlesey  in  1761, 
Caleb  Chapman  in  1774,  and  Samuel  Kirtland  and  Chris- 
topher Lord  in  1782. 

On  the  23d  of  September,  1783,  some  ten  months  prior  to 
the  decease  of  Rev.  William  Hart,  MR.  FREDERICK  WILLIAM 
HOTCHKISS  was  ordained  as  his  colleague  in*  the  pastoral 
office.  He  was  the  fifth  of  the  seven  children  of  John 
Hotchkiss  and  Mrs.  Susannah  (Jones)  Hotchkiss  of  New 
Haven,  where  he  was  born,  October  30,  1762,  in  the  family 
dwelling-house  which  stood  upon  the  corner  of  Elm  and 
High  Streets,  just  north  of  the  present  Alumni  Hall  of  Yale 
University. 

The  family  was  of  pure  New  Haven  stock.  His  father,  a 
descendant  of  Samuel  Hotchkiss,  an  early  settler,  was  a 
graduate  of  Yale  in  the  class  of  1748,  a  generous  patron  of 
the  institution,  and  a  scholar  of  such  excellence  as  to  win,  not 
only  from  his  Alma  Mater,  but  from  Harvard,  Princeton  and 
Dartmouth  Colleges,  the  honorary  degree  of  Master  of  Arts. 
After  graduation  he  taught  in  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School 
for  a  number  of  years.  On  resigning  this  position,  he  de- 


—45— 

'voted  himself  to  mercantile  affairs,  and  published,  in  con- 
nection with  his  partner,  "  Clap's  Annals  of  Yale  College." 

The  mother,  Mrs.  Susannah  (Jones)  Hotchkiss,  was  a 
descendant  of  William  Jones,  who  married  Hannah,  the 
youngest  daughter  of  Gov.  Theophilus  Eaton,  and  settled  in 
New  Haven  in  August,  1660,  and  who  is  noted  as  having 
been  Lieutenant-Governor  of  New  Haven  Colony,  and  after 
the  union  of  New  Haven  with  Connecticut,  Lieutenant- 
<rovernor  of  the  United  Colonies.  The  family  was  connected 
with  the  congregation  of  the  White  Haven  Church,  one  of 
the  organizations  subsequently  merged  in  the  present  United 
or  North  Church.  Of  this  White  Haven  Church  Mrs. 
Hotchkiss  became  a  member  in  July,  1757.  To  her  godly 
example  and  faithful  teaching,  enforced  by  the  powerful 
preaching  of  her  pastor,  Dr.  Jonathan  Edwards,  was  doubt- 
less due  the  early  leaning  of  the  son  towards  a  life  of  piety 
and  the  Gospel  ministry. 

The  son,  Frederick  William,  graduated  at  Yale  College  in 
the  class  of  1778,  at  the  age  of  sixteen.  He  took  a  high  rank 
in  classical  studies,  and  for  excellence  therein  the  Berkeley 
•prize  was  awarded  to  him.  For  four  years  he  devoted  him- 
self to  teaching  in  several  places,  giving  his  earnest  attention, 
the  while,  to  the  study  of  theology  under  such  competent 
teachers  as  were  located  near  to  him.  In  1782,  we  find  him 
pursuing  his  work  as  a  teacher  in  Wethersfield,  where 
doubtless  he  availed  himself  of  the  instruction  of  Rev.  Dr. 
John  Marsh.  On  the  22d  of  September  of  that  year  he  was 
•"  admitted  to  full  communion  "  in  the  Wethersfreld  Church. 
This  delay  in  availing  himself  of  the  privilege  of  "  full 
church  communion,"  while  seeking  the  qualifications  for  the 
ministerial  office,  presents  a  question  which  we  cannot  posi- 
tively solve.  Possibly  he  might  previously  have  had  a 
church  connection  on  the  half-way  covenant  plan. 

But  we  must  not  omit  to  speak  of  an  episode  in  the  life  of 
Mr.  Hotchkiss  which  occurred  some  three  years  earlier.  It 
•was  in  1779,  the  year  after  his  graduation.  The  Revolution- 
ary war  being  in  progress,  a  sudden  attack  was  made  by 
British  troops  under  the  command  of  General  Tryon  upon 


— 46 — 

New  Haven,  on  Monday,  July  5th,  just  as  the  citizens  were 
preparing  to  celebrate  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  He 
acted  as  aid  to  Captain  James  Hillhouse,  who,  with  a  small 
force  hastily  collected,  made  an  effort  to  repel  the  incursion* 
of  the  enemy's  troops  as  they  approached  the  city  from  the 
west.  This  force,  made  up  largely  of  students  and  graduates 
of  the  College,  with  Dr.  Daggett,  the  president,  among  them,, 
encountered  the  British  regulars  in  deadly  conflict.  The 
father  of  Mr.  Hotchkiss  and  two  uncles  were  slain.  It  was- 
the  deep-seated  memory  of  this  event  which  stirred  his  strong 
patriotic  impulses,  and  gave  an  emphatic  tone  to  his  prayers 
and  addresses  at  military  reviews  and  on  Fourth  of  July- 
celebrations,  and  other  public  occasions,  when,  with  sonorous, 
voice  and  soul-stirring  eloquence,  he  officiated  as  chaplain. 

We  now  return  to  the  course  of  our  narrative.  Having 
made  a  public  profession  of  his  faith  in  September,  1782,  he- 
applied  on  the  first  Tuesday  of  the  next  month,  October,  to* 
the  Hartford  South  Association  of  Ministers  at  their  meeting 
in  Eastbury,  now  Buckingham,  for  a  license  to  preach  the 
Gospel,  which  was  granted  to  him.  He  preached  his  first, 
sermon  in  Berlin,  where  probably  he  had  taught  a  school. 
In  a  biographic  sketch  prepared  for  his  grand-daughter,  he 
writes  :  "  On  the  next  Sabbath  I  was  invited  to  officiate 
before  the  General  Assembly  at  Hartford.  It  was  there  that 
I  received  several  invitations  to  preach,  one  of  which  was 
from  Saybrook.  I  came  to  this  place  soon  after,  and, 
preached  on  the  first  Sabbath  in  November.  Very  soon,  I 
was  invited  to  take  the  pastoral  charge  of  this  church,  as- 
junior  colleague  with  Mr.  Hart.  I  preferred  accepting  this 
invitation,  because  I  was  very  young  and  inexperienced." 
He  had  just  passed  his  twentieth  birthday  when  the  call  was 
extended  to  him.  At  his  ordination,  which  occurred  Septem- 
ber 23,  1783,  the  principal  parts  were  performed  by  the  fol- 
lowing ministers :  Rev.  Stephen  Johnson  of  the  First  Church 
of  Lyme,  now  Old  Lyme,  preached  the  sermon  from  Eccle- 
siastes  xii. :  1 1  ;  Rev.  Chauncey  Whittlesey  of  New  Haven 
offered  the  consecrating  prayer  and  imposed  hands  with  Rev_ 


—47— 

Messrs.  William  Hart,  Stephen  Johnson,  and  Elizur  Good- 
rich, D.  D.,  of  Durham  ;  Rev.  Jonathan  Todd  of  East  Guil- 
ford  (Madison)  gave  the  charge,  and  Rev.  Benjamin  Dunning 
of  the  Second  Church  of  Saybrook  gave  the  right  hand  of 
fellowship.  Mr.  Hart  survived  until  July  ii,  1784,  when  he 
passed  away  in  the  forty-eighth  year  of  his  ministry  and  the 
seventy  second  of  his  age.  From  this  time  the  sole  charge 
-of  the  flock  devolved  upon  the  young  minister,  a  charge 
-which  with  whole-hearted  devotion  he  bore  until  the  ordina- 
tion of  his  own  colleague  nearly  fifty-five  years  afterwards. 

In  addition  to  his  salary,  the  exact  amount  of  which  is  not 
•known,  the  Ecclesiastical  Society  voted  to  Mr.  Hotchkiss 
in  the  way  of  a  "settlement"  two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds 
in  money,  the  equivalent  in  Connecticut  currency  of  $833.33, 
towards  building  a  dwelling-house.  The  house  was  built  in 
1785  by  Mr.  Humphrey  Pratt,  and  still  stands  on  our  Main 
'Street,  having  been  recently  owned  and  occupied  by  the  late 
•Charles  W.  Morse.  It  was  not,  however,  till  the  29th  of 
August,  1790,  that  it  was  consecrated  as  his  home  by  in- 
stalling over  it  his  newly  married  wife,  Amelia  Hart,  the 
youngest  child  of  his  predecessor.  Two  daughters  were 
'there  born  to  him,  the  older  of  whom  became  the  wife  of 
the  late  Amos  Sheffield,  a  well-known  merchant  of  this  place. 
""  Madam  Hart,"  as  she  was  called,  the  widowed  mother  of 
Mrs.  Hotchkiss,  was  lovingly  cared  for  in  this  family  until 
her  death,  December  1 1 ,  1 800. 

The  income  of  the  society,  with  the  exception  of  rent  of 
meadow  land  and  fisheries,  was  then  derived  almost  entirely 
from  the  annual  rent  of  pews  in  the  meeting-house.  Once  or 
'twice  during  this  ministry  attempts  were  made  to  return  to 
the  old  custom  of  "dignifying"  the  seats  by  a  committee. 
But  the  measure  encountered  so  much  opposition  that  it  was 
abandoned.  At  the  society's  meeting  in  December,  1808,  it 
Avas  voted,  that,  "  for  the  year  ensuing  every  person  may  sit 
where  he  pleases  " ;  and,  the  expenses  were  met  by  a  tax  of 
two  cents  on  the  dollar  levied  on  the  grand  list.  The  experi- 
ment was  not  repeated. 


-48- 

At  the  beginning  of  Mr.  Hotchkiss'  ministry,  vital  godli- 
ness in  the  church  was  at  a  discount.  "  The  church  was  in 
practice  lukewarm  and  indifferent."  The  Revolutionary  War 
was  just  closing,  and  though  it  had  called  into  action  the 
noblest  exhibitions  of  self-sacrificing  patriotism,  it  had  oper- 
ated depressingly  upon  the  spirituality  and  zeal  of  professed 
Christians.  And  in  addition  to  this,  the  reaction  from  the 
irregularities  and  disorders  attending  the  Great  Revival  had' 
not  yet  spent  its  force.  There  were  only  sixty-nine  members 
in  the  church,  and  for  the  first  three  years  under  the  new 
ministry,  six  was  the  average  annual  accession.  But  in  1787" 
and  the  following  three  years  ninety-six  were  gathered  in. 

In  the  year  1798,  after  Mr.  Hotchkiss  had  held  the  pastoral! 
ofrice  about  fifteen  years,  he  passed  through  a  marked 
Christian  experience  which  so  deepened  his  conviction  of 
the  heinousness  of  sin  and  so  enlarged  his  views  of  the  atone- 
ment, as  to  constitute  the  beginning  of  a  new  and  higher 
Christian  life.  He  was  sometimes  led  to  speak  of  it  as  a. 
second,  if  not  a  first,  conversion.  On  the  6th  of  November 
of  that  year  he  was  at  his  mother's  house  in  New  Haven,  on 
a  visit,  when  after  having  retired  at  night  to  his  bed  he  was. 
"  seized  suddenly  with  a  most  alarming  sense  and  awful  view 
of  sin  and  danger  of  destruction,  of  being  abandoned  of  God' 
and  being  given  up  to  remediless  ruin."  So  terrible  was  his- 
distress  that  he  felt  that  he  should  sink  under  the  burden.. 
He  sought  his  mother's  chamber,  hoping  to  find  relief  in  her 
counsels  and  prayers.  In  the  morning  there  was  "  unusual 
gloom,  but  less  terror,"  in  his  feelings.  On  returning  home 
his  troubles  of  mind  followed  him  and  were  the  frequent 
theme  of  conversation  with  his  wife.  For  a  year  or  more  he 
continued  under  the  cloud,  but  gradually  he  was  able  to  lay 
hold  on  Christ  fully  as  an  all-sufficient  Savior,  with  a  com- 
fortable hope  of  forgiveness  through  Him.  The  result  of  this 
experience  was  that  his  piety  took  on  a  more  elevated  and. 
spiritual  character  and  his  preaching  became  more  earnest 
and  evangelical. 

For  the  ten  succeeding  years  the  annual  additions  to  the 
church  were  not  large.  But  in  1808  "the  valley  of  dry 


—49— 

bones "  showed  signs  of  returning  life,  and  there  ensued  a 
revival  of  religion  of  the  most  striking  character.  There  had 
been  handed  down  from  the  preceding  generation,  a  strong 
prejudice  against  special  efforts  to  promote  revivals,  especially 
such  as  were  connected  with  evening  meetings.  But  as  some- 
thing must  be  done  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  awakening 
manifest  among  the  people,  the  brethren  were  invited  by  Mr. 
Hotchkiss  to  convene  at  his  house  to  discuss  the  subject  of 
evening  meetings,  for  prayer  and  religious  services.  We  let 
him  tell  the  story  as  to  the  issue,  in  his  half-century  sermon  : 
"  They  met  accordingly,  and  the  result  was  a  happy  unanimity 
of  sentiment  and  a  conviction  that  unless  the  anxious  were 
instructed  from  house  to  house,  and  in  season  and  out  of 
season,  there  would  be  schisms  arising  and  operating  to  the 
detriment  of  brotherhood.  The  solicitous  inquirer  must  be 
fed  by  his  pastor,  or  he  would  seek  others  to  give  him  food. 
With  this  impression  the  church  were  united  and  gave  their 
pledge  to  assist  their  pastor  in  his  future  meetings  for  all 
revival  calls  at  all  seasons.  On  the  next  week  evening  ap- 
pointments for  religious  services,  and  for  anxious  inquirers, 
were  assigned  at  different  houses,  and  the  brethren  were  found 
ready  and  faithful  for  all  ministerial  help.  All  seemed  as  one 
in  sentiment  and  feeling,  and  a  most  delightful  harmony  per- 
vaded all  classes  and  gladdened  all  hearts." 

As  the  fruits  of  this  awakening,  sixteen  members  were 
added  to  the  church  in  1809,  and  seventy-four  in  the  follow- 
ing year,  an  aggregate  of  ninety.  At  this  time,  the  parish 
contained  one  hundred  and  fifty-three  families.  Weekly 
appointments  for  evening  services  became  a  regular  feature 
of  church-work  from  this  time  forth,  with  good  annual 
results.  In  1816,  the  number  of  communicants  was  one 
hundred  and  ninety -six.  At  the  close  of  the  year  1826, 
there  was  another  mighty  movement,  which  brought  into 
the  church  "  ninety-three  persons  of  every  age  from  early 
youth  to  advanced  years."  This  revival  had  hardly  run  its 
course  before  a  third,  still  more  striking  in  its  character, 
began  to  manifest  itself,  the  subjects  of  which  amounted  to 
one  hundred  and  forty  hopeful  converts.  Of  these,  seventy- 


—50— 

three  stood  up  together  in  the  aisles  of  the  old  sanctuary  to 
be  admitted  to  church  fellowship  on  the  first  Sabbath  in 
March,  1830.  In  this  last  revival,  Mr.  Hotchkiss  was  assisted 
by  Rev.  Samuel  Griswold,  and  in  the  previous  one  by  Rev. 
Nicholas  Patterson. 

But  I  need  not  particularize  further  than  to  say,  that  as 
long  as  this  honored  father  lived  to  labor  in  the  ministry 
here,  the  quickening  Spirit  accompanied  his  labors.  In  the 
year  1835,  forty-five  additions  were  made  to  the  church,  and 
in  1837,  thirty-two;  so  that  his  wonderful  success  did  not 
wane  amid  growing  infirmities,  but  followed  him  to  the  very 
day  of  the  ordination  of  his  colleague,  when  he  was  in  the 
seventy-sixth  year  of  his  age,  and  the  fifty-sixth  of  his  minis- 
try. During  his  sole  pastorate,  six  hundred  and  thirty-two 
names  were  added  to  the  church  roll — a  yearly  average  of 
nearly  twelve. 

Mr.  Hotchkiss  was  a  perfect  contrast  to  his  predecessor  in 
this,  that  he  gave  very  little  of  his  time  to  the  study  and  dis- 
cussion of  the  profounder  questions  of  theology.  He  had  no 
relish  for  controversy ;  but,  well-grounded  in  the  great  doc- 
trines of  Scripture,  his  interest  was  absorbed  in  their  practical 
bearing.  In  his  own  language,  "  The  great  truths  of  our 
holy  religion  are  few  and  plain  to  be  understood, — comprised 
in  two  short  sentences,  viz. :  Man  entirely  lost  by  sin  ;  and 
the  sinner  saved  by  sovereign  grace."  Upon  these  themes  in 
their  almost  infinite  variety  of  aspect  and  application,  he  was 
never  tired  of  preaching,  and  his  people  never  tired  of  hear- 
ing. His  successor  thus  speaks  of  him  as  a  preacher  :  "  He 
aimed  to  move  his  congregation,  by  touching  appeals,  by 
simple  and  forcible  illustrations  of  divine  truth.  Possessed  of 
a  strong  imagination  and  retentive  memory,  with  a  ready  use 
of  language,  his  voice  having  the  fullness  of  the  lowest  bass 
and  the  sweetness  of  the  softest  tenor,  ever  varying  with  his 
subject  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest  key,  his  hearers  never 
became  weary,  but  always  enjoyed  his  pulpit  addresses  with 
the  relish  of  a  new  and  harmonious  song."  He  seldom 
wrote  out  his  sermons,  but  preached  from  brief  notes.  His 
prayers  were  marked  by  freedom,  appropriateness  and  tender- 


ness.  His  Sabbath  services  seldom  exceeded  an  hour  and  a 
half  in  length.  His  voice,  whenever  the  occasion  called  for  it, 
had  a  Whitefieldian  compass  and  strength  without  harshness. 
When,  on  the  two  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  founding  of 
New  Haven,  in  1838,  he  offered  the  prayer  introductory  to 
the  solemnities  under  the  "  Davenport  Elm,"  he  was  heard 
with  distinctness  by  those  who  stood  at  the  outermost  edges 
•of  the  vast  throng  estimated  at  from  eight  to  ten  thousand. 
A  published  report  says  of  it,  "  The  most  gifted,  heart- 
thrilling  and  patriotic  prayer  to  which  we  ever  listened- 
A  death-like  stillness  in  the  immense  multitude  showed  how 
powerful  and  solemn  the  feelings  awakened  by  the  ardor  of 
the  aged  and  venerable  pastor." 

In  his  middle  and  later  life,  he  presented  to  the  eye  a 
stately  commanding  figure.  The  spare  delicate  look  of  his 
younger  manhood  gave  place  to  a  stoutness  of  build  and  a 
portliness  without  corpulence.  His  easy  gentlemanly  man- 
ners and  his  kindly  face  and  words  inspired  those  who  came 
into  contact  with  him,  with  an  affectionate  confidence,  which 
was  mingled  with  profound  respect  and  veneration.  His 
step  was  measured  and  deliberate,  never  nervous.  His  health 
was  phenomenal.  He  stated  in  his  sixtieth  anniversary 
sermon,  that  "  in  all  this  period,"  sixty  years,  "  I  have  never 
been  confined  one  day  by  sickness,  and  but  five  Sabbaths  by 
wounds  and  dislocated  limbs."  In  him,  there  was  presented 
a  literal  example  of  a  happy  child  of  God  as  set  forth  in  the 
iO3d  Psalm.  "  Thy  youth  is  renewed  as  the  eagle's."  His 
methodical  habits  and  his  serenity  of  temper  doubtless  con- 
tributed largely  to  this  unbroken  state  of  health. 

If  in  any  one  department  of  his  ministerial  service  he 
excelled,  it  was  in  pastoral  work.  He  not  only  made  it  a 
point  to  bring  to  the  homes  of  sickness  and  affliction  words 
•of  consolation  and  the  uplifting  help  of  prayer,  to  visit  the 
schools,  giving  encouragement  to  the  scholars  and  hearing 
them  repeat,  according  to  the  old  custom,  the  answers  in  the 
"  Shorter  Catechism,"  but  he  visited  in  a  regular  round  all  his 
parishioners  annually,  in  a  fatherly  way,  ever  receiving  from 
-them  a  most  cordial  welcome,  each  family,  excepting,  perhaps, 


—52— 

the  very  poorest,  counting  it  a  privilege  to  entertain  him  at 
their  tea  table.  In  these  visits  he  entered  with  sympathy 
into  the  trials  and  joys  of  his  flock,  bestowing  his  counsels,, 
cherishing  the  acquaintance  of  the  children,  and  leaving 
behind  him,  as  a  talisman  against  evil,  his  coveted  paternal 
benediction.  Five  afternoons  in  the  week,  when  not  hindered 
by  other  demands  upon  his  time,  he  gave  to  these  parochial 
calls,  almost  invariably  walking  over  his  route  and  so  arrang- 
ing the  order  as  to  hold  a  religious  service  successfully  in  the 
three  remoter  schoolhouses  of  his  parish,  "  at  early  candle 
lighting." 

There  is  no  evidence  that  Mr.  Hotchkiss  was  ever  discon- 
tented with  the  field  of  labor  in  which  his  Lord  had  placed 
him.  Many  times  there  were  offences  and  frictions  which 
greatly  annoyed  him.  "  But,"  says  his  colleague  and  suc- 
cessor, "  his  people  never  had  a  suspicion  that  he  desired  to 
be  elsewhere.  He  received  during  the  course  of  his  ministry 
several  invitations  to  remove  and  locate  in  some  other  place,. 
and  he  was  strongly  solicited  by  some  of  his  friends  to  accept 
a  flattering  invitation  presented  to  him  in  the  year  181 1,  to- 
become  the  president  of  a  literary  institution  at  the  West. 
His  choice  was  unalterably  made  to  live  and  die  in  the  place 
where  God  directed  him  in  his  youth." 

For  a  number  of  years  he  taught  at  his  own  house  a  private 
school  in  which  he  fitted  some  thirty  young  men  for  college, 
eight  of  whom  were  members  of  his  own  parish.  His  heart 
was  ever  sensitive  and  his  ears  ever  open  to  the  calls  of  phi- 
lanthropy and  Christian  beneficence.  Home  and  foreign 
missions,  African  colonization,  the  abolition  of  slavery  and 
the  cause  of  temperance  enlisted  his  zealous  efforts  for  their 
promotion  as  soon  as  Divine  Providence  brought  their  claims 
into  view.  The  monthly  concert  of  prayer  for  the  conversion 
of  the  world  was  regularly  sustained.  To  the  Sunday  School 
he  gave  his  hearty  support.  It  was  started  on  a  small  scale 
in  1821  or  1822  ;  but  in  1823  a  "  Sabbath  School  Union  "  was 
formed  which  took  its  oversight  in  charge,  of  which  his  son- 
in-law,  Mr.  Amos  Sheffield,  was  secretary  and  treasurer. 
Through  this  instrumentality,  a  library  was  gathered  which. 


—53— 

in  1828  numbered  324  volumes.  For  some  ten  or  twelve- 
years  after  its  establishment,  the  school  was  suspended  during 
the  winter. 

In  the  matter  of  Church  Order,  he  firmly  adhered,  out  of 
intelligent  conviction  as  well  as  from  filial  love  for  the  New 
England  fathers,  to  the  Congregational  polity  as  all  his 
predecessors  had  done.  When,  therefore,  in  1830,  a  number  of 
his  parishioners  seceded  from  this  Ecclesiastical  Society  with  a 
view  to  connect  themselves  with  an  Episcopal  organization,  he 
was  as  deeply  grieved  as  a  father  would  have  been  had  some 
of  his  children  forsaken  him.  A  somewhat  similar  experience 
affected  him  when  in  1837  a  Methodist  Church  was  organized 
within  the  limits  of  the  parish.  But  time  soon  healed  the 
wounds  of  feeling,  even  though  it  did  not  restore  to  his 
pastoral  care  his  old-time  parishioners.  The  losses  which  he 
had  experienced  were  made  up  to  him  during  his  later  years 
by  the  respect  and  love  of  the  entire  community. 

In  the  year  1833,  September  22,  he  preached  his  Half- 
Century  Sermon,  in  which,  after  reviewing  his  long  pastorate, 
he  took  occasion  to  request  his  people  to  relieve  him  from 
active  service  by  the  settlement  of  a  colleague.  No  decisive 
action  was  taken  on  this  request  until  September  26,  1837, 
when,  at  a  society  meeting,  he  offered  his  positive  resignation 
with  the  proposal  "  to  relinquish  all  claims  as  to  his  salary  as 
soon  as  a  candidate  shall  be  employed  to  supply  the  pulpit, 
or  a  colleague  shall  be  settled,  reserving  only  a  seat  in  the 
house  of  worship  for  himself  and  family,  with  exemption  from 
taxation."  The  resignation  was  accepted  and  on  the  first 
Sunday  in  the  new  year,  1838,  he  preached  what  he  called  his 
"  Valedictory."  In  this  discourse  he  specified  what  should  be 
his  "  latest  prayers  "  for  the  people  of  his  charge :  First,  that 
this  ancient  church  might  be  sustained  in  its  Puritan  sim- 
plicity; second,  that  God  would  give  to  his  people  a  collegiate 
pastor  and  successor  to  himself  thoroughly  furnished  for  his 
work  ;  third,  that  the  families  of  his  people  might  be  blessed 
with  spiritual  and  temporal  prosperity,  and  with  the  best 
educational  privileges  ;  and,  to  use  his  own  language,  "  my 
last  prayer  is  a  request  for  your  prayers  united  with  mine, 


—54— 

that  the  closing  services  of  my  life  and  ministry  may  be 
peace  in  retrospect,  with  a  bright  hope,  strong  faith  and  full 
reliance  on  the  covenant  mercies  of  God  to  the  faithful." 

A  call  having  been  extended  to  Rev.  S.  J.  Tracy  to  settle 
here  in  the  Gospel  ministry  as  the  colleague  of  Mr.  Hotchkiss, 
and  declined,  Mr.  Ethan  B.  Crane,  a  recently  licensed  student 
in  theology,  was  invited  to  assume  this  position.  He  accepted 
the  invitation  and  was  ordained  and  installed  on  the  27th  of 
June  of  that  year,  1838.  On  that  day,  the  venerable  pastor 
laid  down  the  responsible  duties  of  the  charge  which  he  had 
borne  so  bravely  and  with  such  eminent  success  nearly  fifty- 
five  years.  Add  to  this  the  ten  months  in  which  he  served 
the  church  previous  to  his  ordination  and  the  five  years  and 
nine  months  during  which  he  sustained  the  relation  of  senior 
pastor,  and  we  have  a  ministry  of  more  than  sixty-two  years. 
And  in  this  connection  it  deserves  to  be  stated,  as  a  most 
remarkable  fact  in  our  ecclesiastical  history,  that  the  two  pas- 
torates of  Mr.  Hart  and  Mr.  Hotchkiss  extended  without  a 
break  over  a  continuous  period  of  one  hundred  and  eight 
years. 

Even  after  this  venerable  father  was  relieved  of  the  more 
responsible  duties  of  his  charge,  he  sought  and  delighted  in 
opportunities  of  doing  good.  Says  Mr.  Crane,  "  Perhaps  he 
was  never  more  useful  to  his  people  than  in  the  last  few 
months  of  his  life.  He  continued  to  visit  their  dwellings  and 
families  to  the  last ;  when  there,  giving  them  a  pleasing  exhi- 
bition of  the  power  of  faith  in  producing  the  choicest  fruits  of 
a  holy  life  in  extreme  old  age.  He  wished  to  die  suddenly, 
to  die  on  the  holy  Sabbath-day."  In  his  pastoral  visits  he 
did  not  shrink  from  a  seven-mile  walk  to  and  from  the 
remoter  families  in  the  parish. 

On  the  24th  of  December  before  his  decease,  he  was  able 
to  preach  a  sermon  marking  the  sixtieth  anniversary  of  his 
ordination,  upon  "  the  duties,  consolations  and  prospects  of 
the  aged  Christian."  It  was  a  most  beautiful  exposition  of  a 
consecrated  life.  It  breathed  the  fragrance  of  the  paradise  at 
whose  portals  he  then  stood  in  waiting.  Upon  Sabbath 
evening  the  3ist  of  the  March  following,  in  the  year  of  our- 


—55— 

Lord  1844,  the  portals  swung  open,  and  he  entered  in  to> 
receive  his  reward.  His  funeral  was  attended  by  nine  of  his 
ministerial  brethren,  and  the  procession  to  the  grave  was 
headed  by  about  three  hundred  Sunday  school  teachers  and 
scholars.  The  companion  of  his  youth  and  of  his  maturity, 
bowed  down  even  then  by  the  weight  of  infirmities  and  the 
weakness  of  age,  survived  him  about  sixteen  months,  when 
she  passed  within  the  gates  to  renew  the  dear  companion- 
ship of  the  earthly  life. 

In  addition  to  the  three  discourses  of  Mr.  Hotchkiss  cited 
in  our  narrative,  eight  others  were  published.  I.  A  Thanks- 
giving Sermon  on  "  National  Greatness,"  preached  November 
29,  1792.  2.  Sermon  on  the  death  of  Mrs.  Deborah  Sanford,. 
October  27,  1793.  3.  Oration  on  the  death  of  General 
George  Washington,  February  22,  1800.  4.  Sermon  at  the 
Installation  of  Pythagoras  Lodge  of  Free  Masons  in  Lyme, 
October  7,  1800.  5.  Sermon  in  memory  of  Uriah  Hayden,  in 
the  Second  Church  of  Saybrook,  October  18,  1801.  6. 
Sermon,  "  The  Cross  of  Christ,  the  Christian's  glory,"  in 
Guilford,  November  8,  1801.  7.  Sermon  on  the  death  of 
Rev.  Richard  Ely,  A.  M.,  senior  pastor  of  the  Second  Church 
of  Saybrook,  August  23,  1814.  8.  Sermon  on  Solomon  and 
Hiram,  at  the  celebration  of  the  Festival  of  St.  John,  in 
Haddam,  June  25,  1821. 

The  persons  named  in  the  following  list  were,  during  his 
pastorate,  chosen  to  the  office  of  deacon  in  this  church  and 
set  apart  by  prayer  and  the  imposition  of  hands:  In  1788, 
Travis  Ayer ;  1801,  Robert  Ely;  1803,  William  Chapman; 
1808,  William  Lord;  1810,  Samuel  Lynde  ;  1823,  Timothy 
Pratt  and  Rufus  Clark;  1824,  Elisha  Sill;  1826,  William 
Chalker;  1834,  William  R.  Clark. 

The  story  of  this  saintly  life  and  ministry  points  its  own 
moral.  The  blessed  and  fruitful  memories  of  its  outlines  and" 
coloring  have  not  grown  dim  after  the  lapse  of  more  than  fifty 
years.  The  language  of  Rev.  Salmon  McCall,  uttered  in  this 
pulpit  twenty  years  after  his  death,  sets  forth  the  impressions 
with  which  his  name  is  even  now  connected  in  the  minds  of 
a  large  proportion  of  the  older  people  of  this  community. 


-56- 

"  Need  I  refer,"  said  the  speaker,  "  to  the  mingled  love  and 
veneration  with  which  his  memory  is  regarded,  and  his  name 
spoken  among  you  still  ?  Old  men  trusted  him,  young  men 
hearkened  to  him,  little  children  ran  after  him  and  clung  to 
him." 

With  the  death  of  Mr.  Hotchkiss  the  one  hundred  and 
ninety-eighth  year  of  the  Church's  history  drew  to  a  close. 
During  this  period,  it  had  been  served  by  only  five  settled 
pastors,  and  one  stated  supply  who  preached  about  four 
years.  With  the  installation  of  the  colleague  of  Mr.  Hotch- 
kiss, a  new  era  was  entered  upon — an  era  of  short  pastorates 
varying  from  eighteen  months  to  eighteen  years.  Not  in- 
cluding the  present  pastor,  there  have  been  seven  incumbents 
of  this  office,  four  of  whom  were  settled  by  a  council.  These 
ministries,  being  fresh  in  the  memories  of  this  people,  need 
only  a  brief  notice. 

The  first  of  these  was  that  of  REV.  ETHAN  BARROWS  CRANE. 
He  was  the  son  of  Jonathan  and  Orpha  (Barrows)  Crane,  and 
was  born  in  West  Troy,  N.  Y.,  July  15,  1811.  He  studied  in 
preparation  for  college  at  Schenectady  and  Amherst,  and  was 
graduated  at  Union  College  in  1832,  and  at  Auburn  Theo- 
logical Seminary  in  1836.  A  license  to  preach  was  given 
him  by  the  Cayuga  Presbytery,  April  15,  1835.  He  first 
presented  himself  as  a  candidate  for  the  pastoral  office  in  this 
Church  on  Sunday,  March  4,  1838  ;  and  on  the  3ist  of  the 
same  month,  a  call  was  extended  to  him  to  settle  here  as 
colleague  pastor  with  Mr.  Hotchkiss  on  an  annual  salary  of 
six  hundred  dollars,  he  "  to  perform  all  the  active  duties  of  his 
pastoral  office."  The  call  was  accepted,  and  he  was  ordained 
and  installed  on  the  2/th  of  June  following.  Rev.  Joel 
Hawes,  D.  D.,  preached  the  sermon  on  the  occasion,  Rev. 
David  D.  Field,  D.  D.,  offered  the  ordaining  prayer,  and, 
together  with  Mr.  Hotchkiss  and  Dr.  Hawes,  imposed  hands, 
and  Mr.  Hotchkiss  gave  the  charge. 

He  came  here  in  the  freshness  of  his  early  manhood,  full  of 
life,  hope  and  zeal.  In  physical  build,  he  was  rather  below 
the  medium  height,  with  a  very  erect,  compact,  but  not 
robust,  frame.  In  movement,  he  was  alert  and  emphatic. 


—57— 

Possessed  of  a  highly  mercurial  temperament,  his  counte- 
nance and  whole  person  were  mobile  with  expression.  His 
intellect  worked  with  great  rapidity ;  and  having  a  free  and 
ready  command  of  language,  he  was  never  at  a  loss  in  giving 
utterance  to  his  thoughts.  Few  men  excelled  him  as  an 
extempore  speaker.  Whenever  he  became  specially  interested 
in  a  subject  under  discussion,  he  was  able,  while  upon  his 
feet,  promptly  to  marshall  all  his  knowledge  touching  it  into 
platoons  of  arguments  in  support  of  his  views.  Hence  at 
public  meetings,  when  some  topic  of  the  times  was  to  be 
handled, — such  as  temperance,  missions  or  slavery, — he  was 
always  in  requisition. 

He  was  eminently  social, — the  favorite  of  his  ministerial 
brethren,  and  the  life  and  center  of  the  circles  in  which  he 
moved.  In  scenes  of  sorrow,  he  was  as  tender-hearted  as  a 
child.  The  sympathy  and  mutual  cordiality  between  him  and 
his  aged  colleague  were  beautiful.  Though  so  different  in 
their  characteristic  qualities,  they  walked  together  in  their 
relations  to  one  another,  as  father  and  son.  In  his  private 
birthday  "reflections,"  October  30,  1838,  four  months  after 
Mr.  Crane's  ordination,  Mr.  Hotchkiss  writes  :  "  I  am  pleased 
with  my  colleague  ;  my  people  are  united  and  satisfied 
beyond  their  prayers  and  expectations."  Two  years  later,  he 
writes,  "  I  occasionally  preach  the  whole  Sabbath  in  the 
absence  or  infirmity  of  my  colleague,  and  frequently  assist 
him  in  his  labors.  Through  the  grace  of  God  we  labor 
together  in  Christian  love,  while  he  is  never  once  for  a  half 
day  forgotten  by  me  in  earnest  prayer."  On  his  last  and 
eighty-first  birthday,  he  makes  this  loving  record  :  "  I  have 
had  a  long  and  peaceful  ministry  and  never  a  happier  one 
than  since  I  had  a  colleague.  My  people  seem  peculiarly 
affectionate  to  me  in  my  advanced  years,  and  I  am  still  able 
to  visit  all  the  families  annually,  and  occasionally  to  preach, 
and  always  to  supply  the  pulpit  in  the  absence  of  my  col- 
league." 

On  the  sixth  of  November  following  Mr.  Crane's  ordina- 
tion, there  was  put  into  execution  a  purpose  which  had  been 
ripening  for  several  years,  viz. :  to  build  a  new  house  of 


-58- 

worship.  The  old  sanctuary  had  been  in  use  one  hundred 
and  twelve  years,  and,  if  longer  used,  needed  extensive^ 
repairs  and  alterations.  It  was  decided,  therefore,  to  build 
anew,  provided  five  thousand  dollars  were  raised  for  that 
purpose.  The  amount  was  promptly  subscribed,  and  on  the 
first  of  January,  1839,  the  building  committee  was  appointed. 
On  the  next  New  Year's  day,  1840,  this  house  in  which  we 
are  assembled  was  consecrated  and  opened  for  worship.  For 
fifty-six  years,  this  structure,  though  it  has  undergone  some 
changes  in  its  interior  finish  and  arrangements,  has  been  the 
hallowed  gathering  place  of  this  Christian  congregation. 

Though  brought  up  and  educated  under  Presbyterian 
auspices,  Mr.  Crane  came  into  strong  sympathy  with  Congre- 
gationalism. Taking  his  senior  colleague  as  his  model,  he 
gave  himself  without  stint  to  the  work  of  the  pastorate,  often 
to  the  exhaustion  of  his  rather  slender  physical  system.  He 
felt  it  to  be  a  disadvantage  and  a  discouragement  to  have  for 
his  field  of  labor  a  parish  which  had  been  so  thoroughly  and 
successfully  worked  over,  and  he  sometimes  said  to  his 
brethren  who  were  located  in  communities  where  there  were 
more  promising  opportunities  for  growth,  that  he  almost 
envied  them,  while  with  his  most  earnest  efforts  he  could  not 
keep  this  ancient  church  up  to  its  past  condition  of  prosperity. 
Near  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  year  of  his  ministry,  his 
health  failed,  and  as  a  consequence  his  spirits  became  de- 
pressed, and  he  asked  for  a  protracted  vacation.  After  an 
absence  of  some  six  months  he  returned,  not  to  take  up  his 
work  again,  but  to  hand  in  his  resignation.  He  was  dis- 
missed by  a  council,  September  27,  1851. 

He  was  an  earnest  and  successful  laborer  in  this  field. 
The  Church  received  twenty -five  new  members  by  profession 
in  1841,  and  in  1848  an  accession  of  forty-four.  The  whole 
number  received  by  him  into  the  Church  was  one  hundred 
and  twelve,  eighty-four  of  them  by  profession, — an  annual 
average  of  between  eight  and  nine.  He  left  behind  him  an 
unstained  record,  and  by  those  who  knew  him,  his  name  is. 
spoken  with  respect  and  strong  affection. 


—59— 

In  the  month  of  October,  1839,  the  year  after  his  settle- 
ment, he  took  for  his  wife  Deborah  Elizabeth,  the  eldest 
daughter  of  Timothy  and  Azubah  (Stannard)  Pratt,  a  much 
loved  and  useful  member  of  this  church.  Their  two  children 
are  still  living ;  but  the  mother  died  August  15,  1873. 

After  leaving  Saybrook,  Mr.  Crane  served  the  churches  in 
Deep  River,  Essex,  East  Hampton  and  Westbrook  for  short 
periods,  until  1855,  when  he  removed  to  Hunter's  Point, 
L.  I.,  where  he  preached  four  years.  He  supplied  the  pulpit 
also  at  Patchogue  and  Woodhouse,  L.  I.,  and  was  employed 
for  a  short  time  by  the  Brooklyn  City  Mission.  In  Decem- 
ber, 1874,  he  became  pastor  of  the  church  in  South  Meriden, 
Conn.,  where  he  remained  until  failing  health  compelled  him 
to  retire  from  active  service.  In  March,  1880,  he  removed  to 
Brooklyn,  where  he  was  lovingly  cared  for  by  his  children, 
and  where  he  died  March  7,  1892,  in  his  eighty-first  year. 
Though  afflicted  with  physical  debility  and  blindness,  his  last 
days  were  marked  by  patience,  and  unbroken  peace  and 
resignation.  On  March  10,  his  remains  were  brought  to  this 
place  of  his  earliest  ministry,  and  buried  in  the  old  cemetery, 
where  stand  the  monuments  of  several  of  his  predecessors  in 
the  pastoral  office,  and  also  of  two  of  his  successors. 

He  made  little  or  no  account  of  writing  for  the  press.  We 
recall  nothing  worthy  of  mention  except  an  article  published 
in  the  New  Englander  on  "  Odd  Fellowship."  During  his 
pastorate  here,  William  Redfield  was  chosen  to  the  diaconate 
in  1848,  and  Ozias  H.  Kirtland  in  1850. 

When  Mr.  Crane  entered  upon  his  vacation  for  the  recruit- 
ing of  his  health,  in  May,  1851,  REV.  JAMES  BEATTIE,  a 
Presbyterian  clergyman,  who  was  on  a  visit  to  family  con- 
nections in  Saybrook,  was  engaged  to  supply  the  pulpit  and 
take  the  pastoral  charge  of  the  flock.  His  services  proved 
very  acceptable  and,  after  Mr.  Crane's  return  and  dismission^ 
he  was  invited  to  continue  his  labors,  which  he  did  until 
November  of  the  following  year.  Several  persons  were 
brought  into  the  church  under  his  ministry  of  more  than  a 
year  and  a  half.  A  brief  notice  of  Mr.  Beattie  will  be  in  place. 
He  was  born  in  Dumfries,  Scotland,  December  3,  1803,  and 


came  to  this  country  when  nineteen  years  old.  He  took  up 
his  residence  in  the  South,  and  having  graduated  at  tne  Theo- 
logical Seminary  in  Charleston,  S.  C,  in  1830,  he  made  his 
home  in  New  Orleans.  There  he  engaged  in  mission  work 
until  he  was  set  apart  to  the  Gospel  ministry  in  April,  1845. 
Two  years  later  he  officiated  for  a  season  as  pastor  of  the 
Third  Presbyterian  Church  which  had  been  gathered  by  his 
labors.  Afterwards,  having  performed  the  ministerial  services 
in  Saybrook,  to  which  reference  has  been  made,  he  filled  two 
short  pastorates  in  New  York  State,  one  at  Fordham  and  one 
at  Westchester,  and  then  returned  to  his  old  home  in  New 
Orleans.  Early  in  the  summer  of  1884,  feeling  the  infirmities 
of  age  creeping  upon  him,  he  chose  Saybrook  for  his  last 
resting  place,  where  he  died  on  the  2d  of  June,  1885,  in 
the  eighty-third  year  of  his  age.  A  marble  slab,  marking  his 
grave  in  the  old  cemetery,  bears  the  appropriate  inscription : 
"  Well  done,  good  and  faithful  servant,  enter  thou  into  the 
joy  of  thy  Lord." 

Rev.  Dr.  B.  M.  Palmer  of  New  Orleans,  with  whom  Mr. 
Beattie  was  associated  in  ministerial  work,  thus  speaks  of  him  : 
"  A  deep  spirit  of  reverence  pervaded  his  whole  being,  with  a 
clerical  dignity  thrown  as  a  mantle  over  his  demeanor,  both 
in  private  and  in  public.  His  sermons  were  distinguished  for 
their  evangelical  tone,  dealing  in  no  refinements  of  speculation, 
but  with  practical  directness  aiming  at  the  conscience  and  the 
heart.  He  was  confiding  and  affectionate  in  all  his  intercourse 
with  friends,  constant  and  firm  in  the  attachments  he  formed. 
In  every  community  in  which  he  lived,  he  secured  the  respect 
of  all ;  and  he  passed  to  his  eternal  rest  amid  the  benedictions 
of  those  upon  whom  the  influence  of  his  character  and  life 
had  distilled  a  blessing  like  the  dew  of  heaven." 

Mr.  Beattie  was  twice  married,  leaving  behind  him  a  widow 
and  four  adult  children, — a  daughter,  the  issue  of  his  first 
marriage,  and  three  sons,  the  issue  of  the  second. 

In  January,  1853,  after  the  retirement  of  Rev.  Mr.  Beattie, 
measures  were  adopted  for  the  building  of  a  parsonage,  and 
promptly  carried  through  by  means  of  liberal  subscriptions 
therefor.  Under  the  old  regime,  when  the  theory  of  the 


relation  between  the  pastor  and  his  people  was  that  of  a  life- 
long connection,  the  pastor  in  his  entrance  upon  his  charge 
received  as  a  "  settlement  "  a  gift  of  money  or  land,  or  of  both, 
to  enable  him  to  provide  for  himself  a  homestead.  But  in 
these  modern  times,  the  tenure  of  the  pastoral  office  having 
become  changeable,  and  often  quite  brief,  it  has  been  found  to 
be  almost  as  much  of  a  necessity  to  provide  a  parsonage 
in  which  to  house  a  minister  and  his  family,  as  to  have  a 
sanctuary  for  him  to  preach  in.  Hence  the  action  taken  in 
this  case  was  both  timely  and  needful. 

Among  the  ministers  who  presented  themselves  in  the 
pulpit  as  candidates  for  the  vacant  pastorate  'was  the  Rev. 
Jesse  Guernsey,  who  had  already  served  several  years  as 
pastor  of  the  church  in  Derby,  Conn.  In  April,  1853,  the 
church  and  society  gave  him  a  call  to  settle  with  them.  But, 
by  reason  of  some  opposition,  he  declined  the  call.  In  the 
autumn  of  the  same  year,  1853,  MR.  SALMON  McCALL,  a 
licentiate,  preached  here  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  congrega- 
tion and  received  an  invitation  to  take  the  pastoral  charge  of 
the  church  and  society.  He  accepted  the  invitation  and  was 
ordained  and  installed  on  the  7th  day  of  December  ensuing. 
President  Theodore  D.  Woolsey  of  Yale  College  preached 
the  sermon  on  the  occasion. 

Mr.  McCall  was  the  son  of  William  and  Sarah  (Gallup) 
McCall  and  was  born  in  Lebanon,  Conn.,  March  17,  1826. 
He  was  fitted  for  college  at  Phillips  Academy,  Andover,  and 
graduated  at  Yale  University  in  the  class  of  1851,  and  at  Yale 
Theological  Seminary  in  1853.  His  ministry  here  of  nearly 
eighteen  years,  lasting  till  November  13,  1871,  though  it 
covered  the  period  of  our  civil  war,  was  a  quiet,  uniform  one, 
thus  corresponding  to  his  character,  with  very  few  salient 
points  to  mark  its  course.  There  were  in  all  one  hundred 
and  thirty-four  accessions  to  the  church,  and  these  were  quite 
evenly  distributed  along  the  years,  except  that  in  1854  the 
number  rose  to  twenty-four,  in  1858  eighteen,  and  in  1863 
sixteen. 

On  the  5th  of  June,  1872,  after  his  dismission  from 
Saybrook,  he  was  installed  as  pastor  of  the  church  in 


—62— 

East  Haddam,  which  relation  he  held  until  January  !„ 
1889,  when  it  was  dissolved  on  account  of  his  broken 
health.  From  that  time  he  made  his  home  in  Saybrook  until 
his  death,  which  occurred  in  Hartford  while  under  medical 
treatment,  September  I7th  of  the  same  year.  His  age  was- 
63  years  and  6  months.  Three  days  later,  the  burial  services 
were  held  in  Saybrook,  in  the  sanctuary  in  which  he  was 
ordained  some  thirty-five  years  and  nine  months  previously. 
Many  of  the  neighboring  ministers  were  present,  and  also 
representatives  of  both  parishes  which  he  had  served  in  the 
pastoral  office.  At  these  services,  Rev.  J.  Howe  Vorce  thus 
speaks  of  him:  "How  the  thoughts  rush  through  the  mind,. 
— thoughts  of  a  scholarship  which  was  seldom  at  fault,  of  a 
charity  which  was  never  exhausted,  of  a  friendship  which 
grew  rather  than  wasted  by  its  exercise!  His  loyalty  to 
truth  was  of  that  vigorous,  faithful  sort  which  it  is  strength  as 
well  as  delight  to  meet.  His  unquestioning  faith  in  and 
reliance  upon  God's  Word  was  of  itself  an  anchor  to  hold 
other  men  to  their  moorings."  Rev.  James  A.  Gallup,  a 
fellow-townsman  and  college  classmate,  thus  sums  up  his 
characterization  of  Mr.  McCall :  "  He  was  a  close  thinker,  a 
good  reasoner,  and  a  ready  writer.  As  a  preacher,  he  was 
earnest,  instructive,  and  spiritual.  He  had  a  rare  faculty  or 
adapting  his  discourses  to  specific  occasions.  At  funerals,  he- 
was  a  true  son  of  consolation.  In  doctrine,  he  was  thoroughly 
orthodox,  and  found  little  in  the  new  theology  to  swerve  him 
from  the  old  paths.  Few  ministers  have  given  themselves, 
to  the  study  of  the  Scriptures  in  the  original  languages  as 
zealously  as  did  our  brother.  The  Hebrew  was  his  delight.'* 
Rev.  Burdett  Hart,  D.  D.,  Annalist  of 'the  General  Confer- 
ence of  the  Congregational  Churches  of  Connecticut,  in  his 
annual  report  for  1859,  bears  a  like  testimony  to  the  reputa- 
tion of  Mr.  McCall  in  the  state.  He  was  "  well-beloved  and 
honored,"  and  by  the  churches  which  he  served,  "  his  memory 
will  long  be  cherished  and  revered.  His  deep  study  of  the 
Bible  in  the  Hebrew  tongue  was  a  joyful  passion,  and  he- 
gained  sweet  and  uplifting  inspiration  from  his  close  commun- 


-63- 

ing  with  those  holy  men  who  spoke  from  God,  being  moved 
by  the  Holy.  Spirit." 

The  following  is  a  list  of  his  publications:  I.  Sermon 
x>n  Responsibility  for  Public  Calamities,  1861.  2.  Funeral 
Sermon  of  Mrs.  C.  K.  Tomlinson,  1866.  3.  Funeral  Sermon; 
.and,  4.  Commemorative  Discourse  of  Mr.  Amos  Sheffield, 
1868.  5.  Funeral  Sermon  of  Miss  C.  J.  Rankin,  1868.  6.  A 
rGlimpse  of  the  Invisible  World  ;  A  Sermon,  1868.  7.  Book 
Culture  and  the  Gospel,  1871.  8.  Centennial  Discourse, 
.Saybrook,  1876.  9.  Centennial  Discourse,  East  Haddam, 
1876.  10.  Ministerial  Character,  pp.  24,  1876. 

He  married,  August  23,  1853,  Emilie  Elizabeth,  daughter 

•of  Rev.  Samuel  and  Mercy  (Partridge)  Whitney  of  Waimea, 

Hawaiian    Islands.      One   of    two    daughters    survives    him. 

During  his  ministry,  in   1854,  Rufus  C.  Shepard  was  chosen 

-to  the  office  of  deacon  in  this  church. 

In  the  course  of  four  or  five  weeks  after  the  dismission  of 
Mr.  McCall,  REV.  FRANCIS  NICOLL  ZABRISKIE,  D.  D.,  a  min- 
ister in  the  communion  of  the  (Dutch)  Reformed  Church, 
presented  himself  as  a  candidate  for  the  vacant  pastorate,  and 
•  in  January,  1872,  he  was  called  to  fill  this  office.  The  call 
was  accepted  and  he  was  duly  installed  on  April  I7th  ensuing. 

Dr.  Zabriskie  was  of  Dutch  stock,  the  son  of  George  and 
:Susan  (Romeyn)  Zabriskie  of  New  York  City,  where  he  was 
•born  April  29,  1832,  and  where  his  father  was  an  elder  in  the 
»church  ministered  to  by  Rev.  Samuel  H.  Cox,  D.  D.  After 
graduation  at  the  New  York  University  at  the  age  of  eighteen, 
,he  devoted  himself  for  two  years  to  the  study  of  law.  But 
changing  his  choice  of  a  profession,  he  entered  upon  a  course 
-of  study  at  the  Theological  Seminary  of  the  Reformed  Church 
.in  New  Brunswick,  N.  ].,  on  the  completion  of  which,  in  1855, 
he  received  a  preacher's  license.  He  was  ordained  at  Living- 
ston, N.  Y.,  in  1856,  as  pastor  of  the  Reformed  Church  in 
that  place,  where  he  labored  three  years.  Subsequently  he 
.served  churches  in  Coxsackie,  Ithaca  and  Claverack,  from 
which  latter  place  he  came  to  Saybrook.  Here  he  devoted 
ihimself  with  singular  intensity  and  success  to  the  work  of  his 
ministry  for  nearly  four  years  and  a  half,  and  until  he  received 


-64— 

a  call  to  assume  the  pastoral  charge  of  the  newly  organized 
Mount  Wollaston  Church  in  Quincy,  Mass.  In  October,, 
1879,  having  completed  three  years  of  service  in  this  latter 
field,  he  offered  his  resignation.  Henceforth  until  his  death,, 
for  the  most  part  he  gave  himself,  as  his  delicate  health  per- 
mitted, to  literary  production.  "The  Life  of  Horace  Greeley, 
as  One  of  a  Series  of  Twelve  Great  Men,"  proceeded  from  his 
pen.  He  devoted  a  large  share  of  his  attention  to  journalism, 
as  assistant  editor  for  awhile  of  the  Christian  Intelligencer, 
and  as  a  much  sought  for  and  prized  correspondent  of  that 
and  other  religious  papers.  In  this  department  of  literary 
activity  he  excelled,  wielding  a  facile  pen  and  enriching  his 
periods  with  apt  illustrative  allusions  drawn  from  a  wide 
range  of  reading. 

As  the  pastor  of  a  Congregational  Church,  he  was  not  "ta 
the  manner  born."  It  was  a  good  deal  of  a  change  to  pass 
from  a  communion  in  which  high-church  views  with  regard 
to  ministerial  prerogative  prevailed  to  simple  leadership  in  a 
democratic  fraternity.  He  was  not  in  his  element,  either  as  to- 
his  temperament  or  his  training.  But  whatever  of  friction 
ensued,  it  was  largely  canceled  by  his  intense  devotion  to- 
pastoral  work  and  by  the  success  of  his  methods.  He  threw 
himself  with  all  his  might  into  the  single  effort  to  bring  to- 
Christ  and  train  for  Christian  service  as  many  as  possible  of 
the  souls  for  which  he  was  appointed  to  watch.  The  young 
people  largely  enlisted  his  attention,  and  even  the  children 
were  led  to  feel  as  they  had  never  felt  before,  that  the  Gospel 
of  Salvation  was  for  them.  He  did  not  seem  to  lay  his  plans 
for  a  long  pastorate,  but  rather  to  accomplish  what  good  he 
could  while  God's  directing  providence  continued  him  upon 
this  ground.  His  sermons,  while  they  bore  the  marks  of  his 
high  literary  culture,  aimed  at  immediate  results.  He  did  not 
excel  as  an  extempore  speaker.  His  forte  was  in  the  pulpit,, 
or  in  direct  personal  dealings  with  individuals.  He  made 
much  use  of  neighborhood  meetings  where  hearts  could 
come  close  enough  to  each  other  for  mutual  quickening. 
Uncle  John  Vassar,  the  noted  evangelist,  assisted  him  at  one 
time  in  a  protracted  series  of  meetings  with  good  results. 


-6S- 

The  fruits  of  this  brief  ministry  were  comparatively  large, 
bringing  into  the  church  eighty-nine  members,  this  being  a 
yearly  average  of  twenty.  Among  those  were  three  young 
men,  now  in  the  Christian  ministry,  who  have  given  full 
proof  of  their  high  calling,  and  who  ascribe,  under  God,  their 
impulse  towards  a  consecrated  life  to  the  pastor's  influence 
and  teachings.  (M.) 

Before  closing  this  account,  several  matters  of  interest 
deserve  to  be  noted.  One  is  that  in  the  second  year  of  Dr. 
Zabriskie's  ministry,  the  present  organ  was  procured  and  pu$ 
up  in  this  house  of  worship.  Its  first  position  was  in  the 
gallery.  It  was  afterwards  removed  to  the  place  it  now  occu- 
pies. The  first  record  of  the  employment  of  instrumental 
music  in  public  worship  here  is  in  a  vote  passed  by  the 
Society  in  1 806  to  the  effect,  "  That  the  committee  be  in- 
structed to  cause  an  alley  to  be  cut  between  the  front  seat 
and  the  second  seat  in  the  west  gallery  for  the  accommo- 
dation of  the  bass-viol."  Other  instruments  soon  came  into 
use,  more  commonly  the  violin.  At  the  beginning  of  Rev. 
Mr.  Crane's  ministry  the  melodeon  was  introduced,  and  this 
gave  place  to  the  cabinet  organ,  which  in  turn  yielded  to  the 
pipe  organ. 

Another  item  of  historical  interest  is  the  building  of  the 
present  chapel  or  "  Conference  Room,"  as  it  was  called, 
which  was  dedicated  on  the  gth  of  July,  1875.  The  school- 
houses  and  private  dwellings  had  been,  as  a  regular  custom, 
utilized  for  evening  meetings  and  other  social  church  gather- 
ings, except  that,  for  a  few  years,  use  had  been  made,  for 
these  purposes,  of  the  building  just  across  the  green  from  this 
sanctuary,  originally  erected  as  a  Methodist  meeting-house, 
but  now  changed  into  a  place  of  trade  with  a  public  hall  in 
the  second  story.  The  present  chapel  now  seems  to  be  an 
indispensable  equipment  for  the  worship  and  work  of  the 
church. 

It  may  be  also  noted  that  William  R.  Clark,  who  had  use- 
fully held  the  office  of  deacon  for  forty-one  years,  in  1875 
resigned  the  office  and  Robert  Chapman  was  chosen  in  his 
place. 


Dr.  Zabriskie  was  married  at  Coxsackie,  N.  Y.,  January  4, 
1863,  to  Maria,  daughter  of  Roswell  and  Rebecca  Reed.  His 
wife,  two  daughters  and  a  son  survive  him.  He  died  at 
Princeton,  N.  J.,  May  13,  1891. 

In  the  course  of  our  narrative,  we  next  come  to  the  minis- 
try of  REV.  RICHARD  BOWERS  THURSTON,  who,  like  Dr. 
Zabriskie,  had  already  made  a  good  record  in  pastoral  work. 
He  was  the  son  of  Richard  Thurston,  and  was  born  in 
Charlestown,  Mass.,  June  28,  1819,  from  which  place  the 
*family,  in  1833,  removed  to  Bangor,  Maine.  After  having 
pursued  a  preparatory  course  of  study  at  the  Bangor  High 
.  School,  he  entered  Bowdoin  College,  where  he  graduated  in 
the  class  of  1841.  Subsequently,  on  completing  his  theolog- 
ical studies  at  Bangor  Seminary,  he  accepted  a  call  to  the 
church  in  Waterville,  Maine,  where  he  had  a  fruitful  ministry 
of  nine  years,  from  November  11,  1846.  He  served  churches 
also  in  Chicopee  Falls  and  Waltham,  Mass.,  the  church  in 
Stamford,  Conn.,  and  the  Second  Church  in  Fair  Haven, 
Conn.  From  this  last  named  church  he  came  to  Saybrook, 
December  5,  1876;  and  before  the  close  of  the  month  he 
received  a  call  to  settle  here.  Though  the  call  was  not  for- 
mally accepted,  he  continued  his  services  as  acting  pastor 
until  June  19,  1881.  Mr.  Thurston  was  a  man  of  scholarly 
tastes  and  of  superior  ability  as  a  thinker  and  as  a  preacher  ; 
and  he  earnestly  devoted  himself  to  the  spiritual  tillage  of 
this  parochial  field.  During  his  incumbency  this  house  of 
worship  was  thoroughly  renovated — the  side  galleries  re- 
moved and  the  pews  re-arranged.  Near  the  close  of  his 
ministry,  Rev.  Rufus  Underwood  was  employed  for  two 
weeks  in  evangelistic  work  with  results  of  spiritual  quickening 
and  conversion.  Thirty-six  additions  in  all  were  made  to  the 
church  during  his  ministry  of  a  little  more  than  four  and  a 
half  years. 

After  his  retirement  from  Saybrook,  he  held  the  position  of 
pastor  of  the  church  in  North  Greenwich  until,  in  1888,  after 
more  than  five  years  of  service,  he  was  compelled,  by  reason 
of  the  failure  of  his  health,  to  hand  in  his  resignation.  From 
that  time  he  took  up  his  residence  in  Stamford,  one  of  his 


-67- 

former  fields  of  labor,  where  amidst  much  suffering  attended 
by  blindness  and  the  loss  of  his  lower  limbs  made  necessary 
t>y  embolism,  he  patiently  awaited,  with  grateful  memories  of 
the  past,  the  glorious  issue  of  his  severe  trials.  He  died  on 
Easter  Morning,  April  14,  1895,  in  his  seventy-sixth  year. 
He  married,  May  24,  1847,  Jane  Miller  Pierce,  daughter  of 
Henry  Miller  and  Susan  (Peironnet)  Pierce,  who  survives,  as 
do  also  three  married  daughters. 

Upon  the  next  Sabbath  after  the  retirement  of  Rev.  Mr. 
Thurston,  that  is,  on  June  26,  1881.  the  pulpit  was  supplied 
by  MR.  WILSON  DAVIDSON  SEXTON,  who  had  just  completed 
his  theological  studies  at  Union  Seminary,  New  York  City. 
After  a  few  weeks  of  continuous  service,  a  call  was  extended 
to  him  to  assume  the  pastoral  charge  of  the  church.  The 
call  was  accepted,  and  he  was  duly  ordained  and  installed 
upon  the  3d  of  August  following. 

Mr.  Sexton  was  a  native  of  the  town  of  Poland,  Ohio, 
where  he  was  born,  May  30,  1853  ;  and  a  graduate  of  West- 
ern Reserve,  now  Adelbert  College,  in  the  class  of  1877. 
His  ministry  in  Saybrook  was  brief,  lasting  only  a  little  more 
than  three  years  and  four  months.  But  by  his  earnest  and 
quickening  sermons  and  his  vivacious  manners  he  strongly 
drew  to  himself  the  confidence  of  this  people  and  gave  bright 
promise  of  a  useful  future.  He  readily  gained  the  esteem  of 
"his  ministerial  brethren,  and  in  matters  of  common  concern  in 
ecclesiastical  affairs  he  proved  himself  to  be  an  efficient  and 
discreet  actor.  It  was,  therefore,  with  deep  regret  on  the 
part  of  his  congregation  and  of  his  acquaintances  in  this 
-vicinity,  that  he  felt  it  to  be  his  duty  to  accept  a  call  to  the 
First  Presbyterian  Church  in  Salem,  Ohio.  He  preached  his 
last  sermon  in  this  pulpit,  December  7,  1884. 

His  pastorate  in  Salem  of  about  the  same  length  as  that  in 
Saybrook  was  sundered  by  his  transference  to  the  charge  of 
the  First  Presbyterian  Church  in  Hillsdale,  Mich.  From 
this  position,  however,  after  a  service  of  more  than  seven 
years,  he  was  advanced  to  take  the  oversight  of  the  Bethany 
Presbyterian  Church  in  the  city  of  Detroit,  where  his  labors 


—68— 

have  been  greatly  blessed  in  the  quickening  and  enlargement 
of  the  church. 

Mr.  Sexton  was  married  to  Miss  Maria  Eunice  Curtiss^. 
May  1 8,  1881.     One  daughter  has  been  born  to  them. 

After  a  lapse  of  some  four  months,  REV.  BERNARD  PAINED 
in  answer  to  a  call  from  this  Church  and  Society,  entered 
upon  the  pastorate  without  a  formal  installation  by  a  council. 
He  began  his  work  in  April,  1885.  During  the  preceding 
interval,  a  quiet  and  fruitful  religious  interest  was  awakened; 
among  the  young  people — a  class  of  twenty  having  been 
organized  and  conducted  weekly  by  a  retired  minister  with  a 
view  to  special  instruction  in  respect  to  a  religious  life. 
Some  eight  of  the  members  of  this  class  united  with  the 
church  on  the  first  Sabbath  in  March.  Others  from  the 
same  company  were  gathered  in  after  Mr.  Paine  began  his 
labors.  This  company  subsequently  enlarged  itself  into  a 
general  young  people's  meeting,  and  at  length  into  a  Society 
of  Christian  Endeavor,  which  has  since  been  maintained  with 
unflagging  vigor,  developing  the  hitherto  hidden  talents  oF 
the  younger  church  members  of  both  sexes.  This  society 
was  tenderly  fostered  by  Mr.  Paine,  and  he  found  in  it  a 
cooperative  element  of  great  value  and  efficiency. 

Mr.  Paine  was  the  son  of  Levi  and  Clementine  Maria 
(Leonard)  Paine,  and  was  born  in  East  Randolph,  Mass.,, 
September  II,  1834.  His  early  manhood  was  given  to 
teaching,  he  having  qualified  himself  for  this  employment 
by  a  course  of  training  at  a  normal  school.  He  then  turned 
his  thoughts  towards  the  ministry,  and  after  pursuing  the 
requisite  preparatory  studies  at  Dummer  Academy,  Byfield,. 
Mass.,  he  entered  Dartmouth  College,  from  which  he  gradu- 
ated in  the  class  of  1863.  He  prosecuted  his  theological 
studies  for  two  years  at  Union  Seminary,  New  York,  and 
completed  them  at  Andover  in  1866.  His  first  pastoral 
charge  was  at  New  Bedford,  Mass.,  where  he  was  ordained, 
June  6,  1867.  His  subsequent  fields  of  labor  were  Foxboro,. 
West  Barnstable  and  Sandwich,  Mass.,  from  which  latter 
place  he  came  to  Saybrook,  where  he  gave  full  proof  of  his- 
ministry,  until  his  sudden  death  from  heart  failure,  Monday,. 


-69- 

June  ii,  1894.  He  was  buried  in  East  Sandwich,  Mass. 
Seventy -four  persons  were  admitted  to  the  church  during  his- 
incumbency  of  nine  years  and  two  months.  A  new  Church 
Manual  was  prepared  in  1888.  Thomas  C.  Acton,  Jr.,  was 
chosen  to  the  diaconate  on  the  resignation  of  Ozias  H. 
Kirtland. 

Rev.  A.  W.  Hazen,  D.  D.,  in  an  address  before  the  Middle- 
sex Conference,  after  speaking  of  Mr.  Paine  in  terms  of 
endearment  as  a  classmate  and  friend,  of  his  skill  as  a  teacher, 
of  his  loyalty  to  his  college  and  home,  thus  refers  to  him  as 
"  a  minister  of  the  grace  of  God."  "  You  knew  his  steadfast 
loyalty  to  the  truth,  to  the  church,  and  to  the  name  of  Christ. 
He  was  a  model  pastor,  as  well  as  an  intelligent,  a  stimu- 
lating and  a  spiritual  preacher.  His  public  prayers  were 
such  as  only  one  who  prayed  much  in  private  could  offer. 
The  life  and  death  of  Bernard  Paine  seem  to  me  like  a  great 
victory — a  victory  over  self,  a  victory  over  the  world,  a  vic- 
tory over  the  last  enemy  ;  and  the  peace  of  God  is  his." 

At  a  meeting  of  this  Church,  on  the  22d  of  June  after  his 
death,  the  following  action  was  unanimously  taken  : 

"  It  having  pleased  the  Great  Head  of  the  Church  by  a  sudden  and  mys- 
terious visitation  of  his  providence  to  bereave  us  of  our  pastor,  Rev.  Bernard 
Paine,  we  put  on  record  our  high  appreciation  of  his  efficiency  and  fidelity 
during  the  more  than  nine  years  of  his  service  among  us,  and  our  deep  sense  of 
the  loss  we  have  suffered  in  his  death.  We  bear  testimony  to  the  singleness  of 
purpose  and  the  godly  sincerity  with  which  he  has  discharged  the  duties  of  his 
office,  ministering  to  all  classes  according  to  the  ability  which  God  gave  him. 

"  We  tender  our  heartfelt  sympathy  to  the  bereaved  wife  and  children,  and 
prayerfully  commend  them  to  the  all-sufficient  Comforter  in  this  hour  of  heavy 
affliction,  while  we  assure  them  of  the  affectionate  attachment  we  feel  for  them 
as  fellow-members  of  this  Church  and  this  community." 

Mr.  Paine  was  married  in  Boston,  December  4,  1867,  to 
Eliza  S.  Blossom,  daughter  of  Bennet  W.  and  Abby  Blossom 
of  East  Sandwich,  Mass.  His  wife,  three  daughters  and  a 
son  survive  him. 

The  present  incumbent  of  the  pastoral  office  in  this  Church, 
REV.  EDWARD  EVERETT  BACON,  had  an  experience  of  some 
eighteen  years  in  the  ministry  before  entering  this  field.  He 
is  the  son  of  Norval  and  Janette  (Terry)  Bacon,  and  was  born 


—70— 

-in  Marshall,  Oneida  County,  N.  Y.,  August  I,  1845.  His 
preparatory  studies  were  pursued  at  Whitestown  Seminary, 
Whitesboro,  N.  Y.,  whence  he  passed  into  Hamilton  College, 
receiving  his  bachelor's  degree  in  1873.  He  studied  theology 
at  Andover,  and  during  his  senior  year  in  that  instiution,  he 
was  licensed  to  preach  by  the  Essex  Association,  Mass.  The 
Congregational  Church  in  Norway,  Maine,  constituted  his 
first  pastoral  charge,  over  which  he  was  ordained  September 
J3>  l&77-  After  completing  a  ministry  of  more  than  three 
years,  he  became  pastor  of  a  Congregational  Church  in  West- 
brook,  Maine,  from  which  position  he  retired  after  twelve 
years  of  service.  He  began  his  work  here,  in  response  to  a 
call  from  this  Church  and  Society,  on  the  second  Sabbath  in 
November,  1894.  The  family  at  the  parsonage  includes,  in 
addition  to  himself,  his  wife,  Mrs.  Clara  (Hoppin)  Bacon,  two 
daughters  and  two  sons. 

During  the  incumbency  of  Mr.  Bacon,  the  Ecclesiastical 
Society  connected  with  this  church  has,  by  a  unanimous 
vote,  passed  over  all  its  interests  and  rights  into  the  hands  of 
the  church,  and  has  thus  ceased  to  be.  The  church  has  been 
legally  constituted  a  body  politic  for  the  management  of  its 
secular  affairs. 

Two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  when  this  church  was 
organized,  the  inhabitants  of  the  original  town  of  Saybrook 
did  not  probably  exceed  one  hundred  souls.  To-day  the 
number  within  the  same  limits  is  not  less  than  twelve 
thousand.  Forty-seven  years  passed  away  before  another 
church  was  formed, — that  in  Old  Lyme  ;  and  forty-two 
years  more  elapsed  before  a  church  of  any  denomination 
other  than  Congregational  began  to  conduct  Christian 
worship, — viz.  :  the  Baptist  Church  in  Winthrop.  Since 
then,  as  the  population  has  increased  and  become  changed 
more  or  less  in  its  denominational  preferences,  it  is  no  longer 
"  of  one  language  and  one  speech."  Churches  of  varying 
ecclesiastical  order  and  polity  work  together  on  this  historic 
ground  in  brotherly  harmony,  thus  dividing  among  them- 
selves the  responsibility  for  caring  for  the  spiritual  welfare  of 


the  people.  And  where,  there  was  once  a  single  feeble 
church  small  in  its  beginnings,  there  are  now  not  less  than 
twenty-nine  churches  or  centers  of  Christian  worship  from 
which  shine  forth  the  rays  of  Gospel  light.  (N.) 

Here  our  historical  sketch  comes  to  its  close.  In  the 
review  of  the  two  and  a  half  centuries  which  it  covers,  we  are 
profoundly  impressed  with  the  fact  of  the  unbroken  con- 
tinuity of  this  Church  of  Christ.  In  the  perpetually  changing 
personnel  of  its  membership,  it  has  clung  fast  to  its  ever-living 
head  from  whom  it  derives  its  inexhaustible  vitality.  Its 
beginnings  were  nearly  coeval  with  the  settlement  of  this 
ancient  and  historic  town  and  of  the  commonwealth  of  which 
the  town  is  a  constituent  part.  Without  interruption,  the 
worship  of  God  has  here  been  maintained  and  the  sacraments 
of  the  church  observed.  .  From  this  altar,  unceasing  prayers 
and  praises  have  ascended  to  heaven.  Through  the  grace  of 
God,  generation  after  generation  has  here  been  ministered 
unto  in  spiritual  things,  by  godly  men  and  women, — parents, 
teachers,  pastors,  exemplars  of  the  principles  of  the  Gospel  in- 
daily  life,  whether  occupying  higher  or  lower  social  positions, 
— who  have  labored  together  for  the  one  great  object  of 
gathering  into  the  fold  of  Christ  and  building  up  in  Christian 
character  the  souls  embraced  within  this  parochial  field.  And 
blessed  be  God,  they  have  not  labored  in  vain,  as  we,  who 
have  entered  into  their  labors,  can  joyfully  testify. 

It  is  a  thought  full  of  inspiration  that  we,  the  present 
members  of  this  church,  the  heirs  of  these  stored-up  blessings, 
are  moving  onward  in  the  line  of  an  unbroken  procession  of 
God's  people  stretching  from  earth  to  heaven,  whose  forward 
ranks  have  long  since  reached  the  home  of  the  blessed.  The 
moral  and  spiritual  lessons  to  be  drawn  from  the  narrative 
scarcely  require  more  than  a  bare  suggestion  from  me, — 
instigations  to  faith  in  God  and  His  promises,  to  holy  living 
to  brotherly  helpfulness,  to  increased  and  enlarged  Christian 
activity.  What  the  fathers  and  mothers  have  achieved  in  the 
past,  should  be  regarded  only  as  stepping-stones  to  greater 
achievements  in  the  future.  Only  as  we  raise  our  standard  of 


—72— 

Christian  fidelity  higher  and  higher  as  the  years  move  on 
shall  we  wisely  build  upon  these  foundations  and  render  this 
spiritual  structure  worthy  to  continue  to  be  "  a  habitation  of 
God  through  the  Spirit." 

* 

NOTES. 

A.  p.  4.     As  an   illustration  of  the  tremulous  state  of  the  public  mind  in 
England  during  the  reign  of  King  Charles  I,  both  among  Puritan  gentlemen  of 
prominence   and   among   the   common    people,  I   cite   the    following   example : 
When  in  1638  a  squadron  of  eight  ships  lay  near  the  mouth  of  the  Thames, 
ready  to  set  sail  for  New  England,  a  rumor  went  abroad  that  John   Pym,  John 
Hampden  and  Oliver  Cromwell  were  on  board  of  one  of  the  ships  with  the  inten- 
tion of  joining  their  distinguished  friends  of  the  Warwick  company,  who  were  on 
the  eve  of  departure  for  their  Saybrook  plantation,  but  that,  in  the  execution  of 
the  king's  decree  prohibiting  persons  from  leaving  the  kingdom  without  a  special 
license,  officers  of  the  government  compelled  them  to  disembark.     This  story, 
probable  enough  in  itself,  but  actually  founded  on  mere  suspicion,  gained  such 
currency  that  leading  historians — Neal,  Hume,  Hallam,  Robertson  and  others, 
incorporated  it  into  their  works.     Even  the  sites  have  been  pointed  out  in  Say- 
brook,  where  their  houses  were  to  have  been  built.     The  story  has  been  shown 
to  be  unworthy  of  credit.      It  has  been  proved  that  the  fleet,  in  which  they  were 
said  to  have  taken  passage,  was  delayed  but  a  few  days  and  then  proceeded  on 
the  voyage  without  any  diminution  of  the  passengers  on  board  and  arrived  safely 
in  Massachusetts  Bay.     So  says  Bancroft's  History,  Vol.  I,  p.  411.     Green  calls 
it  "a  doubtful  tradition." 

B.  p.  6.     The  monument  which  was  erected  over  the  grave  of  Lady  Fenwick 
within  the  precincts  of  the  old  fort,  has  had  a  disturbed  history.     The  tradition 
is  that  Col.    Fenwick,  on  his  hasty  departure  for   England,  left  it  in  charge  of 
Matthew   Griswold,  as  his  business  agent,  to  provide  a  suitable  monument  to 
mark  the  place  of  her  interment,  promising  to  transmit  an  appropriate  inscription 
to  be  placed  upon  it.     This,  however,  he  neglected  to  do,  by  reason  of  his  en- 
grossment in  the  political  affairs  of  the  times.     A  number  of  years  afterwards, 
some  one  inscribed  upon  the  stone  the  figures  "  1648,"  as  if  this  was  the  year  of 
her  death,  thus  perpetuating  an  error  of  three  years. 

Some  fifty  years  ago  a  devotee  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  apparently  with 
the  design  of  connecting  the  name  of  this  excellent  Christian,  Lady  Fenwick, 
with  that  church,  procured  the  chiseling  upon  her  monument  of  a  large  cross — 
an  emblem  which  was  doubtless  dear  to  the  deceased  as  the  symbol  of  her  simple 
Puritan  faith,  but  one  which,  in  its  design  of  associating  her  memory  with  the 
Church  of  Rome,  she  would  have  indignantly  repudiated. 

The  walls  of  the  old  fort  having  fallen  by  the  lapse  of  time,  and  thus  the 
outlines  of  the  enclosure  nearly  obliterated,  and  the  grounds  having  been 
wanted  for  railroad  purposes,  the  bones  of  Lady  Fenwick  were  exhumed  in  1870, 


—73— 

two  hundred  and  twenty-five  years  after  burial,  and  with  solemn  Christian  rites 
deposited  in  the  old  cemetery  at  Saybrook  Point.  The  original  monument  re- 
moved to  this  new  position  marks  the  place  of  the  sacred  deposit. 

C.  p.  8.  The  practice  of  medicine  by  Mr.  Peters  in  addition  to  the  duties  of 
his  chaplaincy  was  not  a  singular  case,  as  many  of  the  early  ministers  of  New 
England  gave  more  or  less  attention  to  the  healing  of  bodily  maladies.  Dr. 
Thomas  Pell,  who  was  the  "  chirurgeon  "  of  Saybrook  Fort  under  the  adminis- 
tration of  Col.  Gardiner,  was  a  regularly  bred  medical  practitioner.  He  is  sup- 
posed to  have  been  the  first  one  who  practised  in  Connecticut,  and  for  nearly  an 
hundred  years  there  were  very  few  professional  men  of  his  class.  Each  family 
either  treated  its  own  sick  and  wounded  members,  or  called  in  the  advice  and 
aid  of  persons  who  made  a  business  of  nursing,  or  such  of  their  neighbors  as  had 
the  reputation  of  skill  in  the  art  of  healing.  Ministers,  as  a  class,  gave  more  or 
less  attention  to  the  cure  of  bodily  as  well  as  spiritual  maladies.  Rev.  Gershom 
Bulkley,  of  New  London,  and  afterwards  of  Wethersfield  (1661-1713);  Rev. 
Phineas  Fisk,  of  Haddam  (1714-1738) ;  Rev.  Jared  Elliot,  of  Killingworth,  now 
Clinton  (1709-1763);  and  Rev.  Stephen  Holmes,  of  Pautapaug,  now  Center- 
brook  (1757-1773),  were  clerical  physicians  of  note  in  their  day.  Whether  the 
earlier  ministers  of  this  church  added  the  practice  of  medicine  to  their  pastoral 
work  is  not  known.  They  probably  did  to  some  extent. 

The  following  is  a  list  of  professional  physicians  who  have  served  this  parish 
and  community : 

1.  SAMUEL  ELLIOT,  son  of  Rev.  Jared  Elliot,  of  Clinton.     He  graduated  at 
Yale   College   in    1735,   studied   medicine   with   his   father,   settled   here   as  a 
*'  Practitioner  of  Physic  "  in  1737.      His  health  failing,  he  took  a  sea  voyage  and 
died  in  Africa,  January  I,  1741,  in  his  twenty-fifth  year.     He  was   engaged  to 
Mary,  daughter  of  Dea.  Joseph  Blague,  who  subsequently  married  Rev.   William 
Hart. 

2.  AUGUSTUS  ELLIOT,  brother  of  the  preceding.     He  graduated  at  Yale  in 
1740  and  succeeded  his  brother  in  practice.     He  died  unmarried,  November  29, 

1747,  in  his  twenty-eighth  year. 

3.  SAMUEL  FIELD.     He  became  a  member  of  this  church  in  1750.     He  was 
a  graduate  of  Yale  in  the  class  of  1745.     He  died  September  25,  1783,  aged  58. 

4.  ELISHA  ELY.     He  was  the  son  of  Samuel  Ely,  of  Lyme,  and  was  born  in 

1748.  He  settled  here  probably  about  1770  or  1771,  and  died  in   1801.     There 
is  a  tradition  respecting  him  that  he  gave  himself  largely  to  the  treatment  of 
small  pox  and  that  he  stuttered. 

5.  SAMUEL  FIELD,  a  twin  son  of  the  before  named  Dr.   Field,  baptized  by 
Rev.  Mr.  Hart  in  1761.     He  united  with  this  church  in  1785.     The  date  of  his 
death  is  not  known. 

6.  SAMUEL  CARTER  was  born  in   Killingworth,  July  10,  1779.     He  entered 
upon  practice  here  in  September,  1802,  and  became  a  member  of  this  church  in 
1809.     He  received  the  honorary  degree  of  M.  D.  from  Yale   College   in   1822. 
In  the  year  1825  he  removed  to  Vernon,  N.  Y.,  and  died  there  in  1853. 

7.  ASA  H.  KING  was  born  in  New  Haven,  April  5,  1798.     He  graduated  at 
Yale  in  1821,  and  received  the  degree  of  M.  D.  from  Bowdoin  College  in  1824. 


—74— 

He  succeeded  Dr.  Carter  in  medical  practice  and  joined  this  church  in  1849. 
He  died  November  20,  1870. 

8.  JOHN  H.  GRANNISS  began  practice  here  December  I,  1868,  after  gradu- 
ating at  the  Medical  School  of  Yale  University. 

D.  p.  10.  Of  the  partial  list  of  persons  named  as  having  been  organized  into 
the  church,  several  subsequently  moved  away  either  to  Norwich  or  to  Lyme,  or 
made  their  homes  outside  of  the  present  limits  of  this  parish.  Of  four  or  five 
who  remained  within  these  limits,  brief  mention  may  be  made. 

ROBERT  CHAPMAN  came  from  England  when  nineteen  or  twenty  years  old, 
and  was  a  member  of  the  party  which,  in  1636,  under  the  superintendence  of 
Lion  Gardiner,  constructed  Saybrook  Fort  and  laid  out  the  plot  for  the  projected 
town.  He  settled  down  as  a  resident  of  Saybrook  Point  until  all  his  seven 
children  were  born.  In  1666  he  built  his  dwelling  house  in  Oyster  River 
Quarter,  where  his  lands  were  mostly  located,  some  of  which  have  been  occupied 
by  his  descendants  up  to  the  present  time.  The  site  of  his  house  was  a  rod  or 
two  west  of  the  present  residence  of  George  W.  Denison,  and  upon  a  pane  of 
glass  in  a  window  there  was  scratched  this  couplet : 

"  In  1636,  I  here  appeared; 
In  1666,  I  this  upreared." 

He  was  a  prominent  figure  both  in  civil  and  military  life.  He  was  Commissioner 
for  Saybrook  for  many  years,  Deputy  to  the  General  Court  at  forty-three  sessions 
and  was  chosen  Assistant  nine  times.  He  was  also  Captain  of  the  train  band. 
As  an  earnestly  religious  man,  his  Christian  spirit  descended  as  an  heirloom  in. 
the  family,  and  while  there  is  a  large  sprinkling  of  names  among  his  descendants 
prominent  in  the  professions  of  law  and  medicine,  and  in  civil  office,  the  gen- 
ealogical record  of  1854  reports  fourteen  ministers  in  the  male  line,  several  of 
whom  are  Doctors  of  Divinity,  and  deacons  too  numerous  to  count.  He  died 
October  13,  1687. 

WILLIAM  BUSHNELL,  son  of  John,  with  five  or  six  brothers,  was  an  early 
emigrant  from  England.  Remaining  but  a  short  time  in  Massachusetts,  he,  with 
his  brothers  Francis  and  Richard,  taking  Long  Island  on  their  way,  directed 
their  course  to  Guilford,  Conn.,  attracted  thither  probably  by  their  acquaintance 
with  and  relation  to  some  of  the  settlers  in  that  place  and  neighborhood,  one  of 
whom  was  Francis  Bushnell,  "  Ye  Elder,"  who  might  have  been  their  uncle. 
Being  carpenters,  they  were  invited  to  remove  to  Saybrook  by  Robert  Chapman, 
whose  sister  Rebecca,  William  had  married,  their  trade  being  in  great  demand 
in  that  place.  William  responded  promptly  to  this  call  and  the  birth  of  his  first 
child  in  1644  is  recorded  in  Saybrook.  Having  secured  lands  in  the  Oyster 
River  Quarter,  he  established  his  homestead  about  1666  a  short  distance  west  of 
Robert  Chapman's.  It  is  not  certainly  known  when  his  brothers  left  Guilford 
for  Saybrook,  but  probably  within  three  or  four  years.  There  is  a  tradition  that 
Richard  came  with  William.  Negotiations  were  had  with  Francis  about  the  run- 
ning of  the  Guilford  mill.  But  the  burning  of  the  Saybrook  Fort  with  the 
enclosed  and  adjoining  buildings,  in  1647,  depriving  the  settlers  of  their  homes 
and  place  of  worship,  so  emphasized  the  demand  for  carpentry  work  as  to  furnish 
a  reason  for  believing  that  their  removal  took  place,  if  not  before,  soon  after  the 


—75— 

co  nflagration.  The  tradition  is  that  Francis  was  chosen  a  deacon  of  this  church 
in  1648.  It  is  positively  certain  that  before  the  year  1653,  he  was  established  as 
a  resident  of  Saybrook,  as  in  that  year  he  was  appointed  an  appraiser  of  certain 
property  in  this  town  by  the  General  Assembly.  William  was  appointed  lieuten- 
ant of  the  train  band,  was  elected  Deputy  to  the  General  Assembly,  and  held 
other  offices  of  trust.  Among  his  descendants  who  have  attained  distinction  may 
be  named  the  late  Dr.  Horace  Bushnell,  of  Hartford.  He  died  August  u,  1684. 

Francis  Bushnell,  the  second  of  the  three  brothers,  though  not  one  of  the 
founders  of  the  church,  was  its  second  deacon,  and  a  man  of  prominence,, 
especially  in  church  affairs.  He  built  the  first  gristmill,  run  by  water  power,  in 
the  town,  on  or  near  the  site  of  Robert  B.  Chalker's  present  mill,  and  received  a 
valuable  perquisite  of  land  on  condition  that  he  would  run  the  mill  for  the  accom- 
modation of  the  inhabitants.  In  the  family  genealogy  there  are  honored  names. 
He  died  December  4,  1681,  aged  82. 

Of  Richard,  the  youngest  brother,  very  little  is  known,  as  he  was  not  much  in 
public  life.  He  died  about  the  year  1658  and  was  buried  in  Saybrook,  leaving 
two  sons  and  two  daughters.  His  widow,  Mary  by  name,  who  was  a  daughte- 
of  Matthew  Marvin  of  Hartford,  married  Dea.  Thomas  Adgate,  and  the  family 
joined  the  company  which  migrated  to  Norwich  in  1660.  The  present  Governor 
of  Ohio,  Hon.  Asa  S.  Bushnell,  is  one  of  his  descendants. 

LIEUTENANT  WILLIAM  PRATT  settled  in  Essex  and  was  a  leading  man  in  the 
affairs  of  the  Church  and  in  civil  and  military  life.  His  descendants  have  held 
many  prominent  positions  in  this  community  and  abroad. 

WILLIAM  LOKD  was  a  son  of  Thomas  Lord,  one  of  Thomas  Hooker's  com- 
pany which  settled  Hartford  in  1635.  He  was  one  of  the  original  proprietors  of 
Saybrook,  where  he  died,  May  17,  1678,  leaving  a  large  family  of  children. 
Among  his  descendants  are  many  names  of  distinction. 

In  respect  to  MATTHEW  GRISWOLD,  who  was  the  ancestor  of  two  Governors 
of  Connecticut,  although  he  removed  to  Lyme  prior  to  1665,  it  deserves  mention 
that  he  retained  his  connection  with  this  Church  until  the  close  of  his  life,  which 
occurred  September  27,  1698.  His  body  was  brought  hither  for  interment.  He 
was  a  stanch  Congregationalist  in  principle,  and  presented  to  the  Church  the 
first  silver  cup  used  in  the  observance  of  the  Lord's  Supper.  The  inscription 
upon  it  is  :  "  S.  C.  ex  dono  domini  Matthai  Griswoald."  The  letters  "  S.  C."1 
are  doubtless  the  initials  of  Sacramentalis  Calix.  Translated  into  English,  the 
inscription  reads,  "  A  Sacramental  Cup,  as  a  gift  of  Mr.  Matthew  Griswold." 

It  may  be  said  of  WILLIAM  PARKER,  although  he  probably  was  not  one  of 
the  founders  of  the  Church,  that  he  was  one  of  the  earlier  and  more  prominent 
members,  and  a  leading  man  in  the  town.  He  represented  the  town  at  seven 
sessions  of  the  General  Court,  and  filled  other  offices. 

Among  those  who  became  members  of  the  Church,  or  of  the  congregation, 
within  the  first  half  century  of  its  existence,  we  find  the  names  of  Ingham, 
Shipman,  Huntington,  Hosmer,  Bull,  Clarke,  Chalker,  Tully,  Waterhouse, 
Blague,  Wastoll,  Kirtland,  Whittlesey,  Willard  and  Lynde. 

E.  p.  12.  We  are  here  confronted  with  a  strange  fact  and  a  strange  condi- 
tion. It  seems  hardly  supposable  that  a  transaction  of  so  great  importance  as 
the  organization  of  a  church  should  have  taken  place  without  a  record  having 


-76- 

been  made  of  it.  Only  twenty-three  years  have  passed,  and  no  records  can  be 
found.  There  is  no  probability  that  they  were  surreptitiously  taken  away  by  the 
company  that  had  migrated  to  Norwich  with  Mr.  Fitch,  as  has  been  alleged,  as 
that  company  never  claimed  to  be  the  Church  which  was  here  organized  in  1646. 
The  case  is  like  that  which  has  occurred  in  a  multitude  of  other  instances  of 
ecclesiastical  action,  in  respect  to  which,  modern  historians  are  accustomed  to 
say,  "  The  records  are  lost"  It  is  not  to  be  disputed  that  there  is  abundant 
cause  to  deplore  and  blame  the  carelessness  with  which  the  memorials  of  our 
early  history  have  been  treated.  They  have  been  stowed  away  among  old 
rubbish  in  closets  or  garrets  until  destroyed  by  dampness  or  vermin,  if  not  sold 
for  paper  rags  or  used  for  kindling  fires.  But  did  the  fathers  place  that  value 
upon  these  records  which  led  them  to  see  that  they  were  properly  made  and  to 
provide  for  their  preservation  ?  In  a  majority  of  cases  it  would  seem  that  they 
did  not.  No  blank  books  were  provided  for  their  registration,  no  place  for  their 
deposit  designated,  and  no  registrar  appointed  either  to  copy  them  or  care  for 
them  on  file.  Ministers  doubtless  kept  minutes  of  baptisms  and  admissions  to 
church  membership,  and  of  votes  passed  by  their  churches.  But  these  were 
private  papers,  which,  after  the  retirement  or  death  of  the  minister,  were  either 
regarded  as  family  relics,  or  destroyed  as  were  old  account  books. 

A  case  in  illustration  may  be  cited  from  the  records  of  the  neighboring  church 
in  Chester.  Rev.  Samuel  Mills,  the  fifth  pastor,  who  left  only  a  record  of  mar- 
riages, states  on  the  fly  leaf  of  the  earliest  book  of  church  records,  under  date  of 
1786,  "  I  find  nothing  relating  to  the  Church  left  in  writing  by  the  former  minis- 
ters ;  and  no  proper  book  was  provided  until  now  for  the  regular  recording  of 
any  transactions  of  a  public  nature  and  of  this  kind,"  i.  e.  marriages,  "  in  par- 
ticular." Some  few  of  our  early  churches  can  show  records  complete  quite  back 
to  their  beginnings.  The  earliest  extant  records  of  this  Church  are  of  the  date 
of  1736,  the  first  year  of  Rev.  William  Hart's  ministry.  Ninety  years  are  a 
blank,  except  what  may  be  gleaned  from  Town  and  Colony  Records,  from  tradi- 
tion, from  contemporaneous  history  and  memorial  discourses. 

F.  p.  15.  For  the  names  and  descriptive  notices  of  the  more  prominent 
families  whose  ancestors  were  in  the  Norwich  migration,  the  reader  is  referred  to 
the  address  of  Rev.  Charles  A.  Northrop,  pastor  of  the  First  Church  of  Norwich, 
given  on  subsequent  pages. 

Q.  p.  16.  Rev.  Dr.  Leonard  Bacon,  in  his  historical  discourse  delivered  at 
Norwich  at  the  celebration  of  the  one  hundred  and  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the 
General  Association  of  Connecticut,  speaking  of  Rev.  Thomas  Buckingham, 
says,  "  he  appears  to  have  commenced  his  ministry  at  Saybrook,  not  far  >rom  the 
year  1667,  when  the  candlestick  had  been  removed  out  of  ifs  place,  by  the 
migration  of  the  Church  with  its  pastor  to  Norwich.  Before  1669,  another 
Church  had  been  gathered  at  Saybrook,  and  soon  aftei  .yards  Thomas  Bucking- 
ham became  its  pastor."  Upon  these  statements  we  offer  the  following  remark*  '• 
l.  Dr.  Bacon  evidently  accepts  the  tradition  to  which  the  historian  Trumbull 
gave  currency,  that  "  the  majority "  of  the  Church  of  Saybrook  removed  to 
Norwich  with  Mr.  Fitch.  2.  As  a  corollary,  he  affirms  that  the  organized 
church  migrated  to  Norwich,  and  that  this  migration  necessitated  the  gathering 
of  a  new  church  at  Saybrook.  The  majority  carried  the  old  organization  with  it. 


—77— 

This  is  good  Congregational  logic.  But  if  the  main  premise  is  disproved  or 
rendered  doubtful,  the  conclusion  falls.  There  is  no  evidence  that  "  the  ma- 
jority" of  the  Church  migrated  to  Norwich.  An  unsupported  rumor  to  that 
effect  became  hardened  into  a  tradition,  and  that  tradition  was  claimed  to  be 
historic  fact. 

H.  p.  22.  Does  not  this  tenacity  of  the  brethren  with  regard  to  their  "  right '» 
to  impose  hands  in  the  ordination  of  their  pastors,  furnish  a  clue  to  the  cause  of 
the  delay  in  the  ordination  of  Rev.  Moses  Noyes  in  Lyme  ?  There  are  reasons 
for  believing  that  he  was,  by  conviction  as  well  as  by  training,  inclined  toward 
Presbyterianism.  His  father,  the  very  excellent  Rev.  James  Noyes,  pastor  of 
the  Church  in  Newbury,  Mass. ,  was  very  desirous  to  introduce  the  Presbyterian 
element  into  the  polity  of  the  New  England  Churches,  and  wrote  in  advocacy  of 
that  system.  Mr.  Noyes  of  Lyme  was  recognized  as  one  of  the  earnest  support- 
ers of  the  modified  Congregationalism  embodied  in  the  Saybrook  Platform. 
There  was  an  earnest  desire  both  on  his  own  part  and  on  the  part  of  his  congre- 
gation that  (he  pastoral  relation  should  be  established  between  them.  But  when 
the  connection  seemed  ready  to  be  formed,  there  was  a  recoil.  May  it  not  have 
been  for  the  reason  that  the  Saybrook  contingent  among  his  people,  which  at 
first  was  controlling,  insisted  on  the  "  right  "  of  the  brethren  to  ordain  their  own 
pastor  ?  The  organization  of  the  Church  and  his  ordination  were  consequently 
delayed.  The  lapse  of  a  generation,  however,  effected  such  changes  in  the 
personnel  oi  the  population  that  the  long  wished-for  relation  was  constituted  with 
little  or  no  friction. 

I.  p.  28.  It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  the  First  Church  of  Norwich  has  ever 
held  fast  to  the  strict  Congregational  polity  set  forth  in  the  Cambridge  Platform. 
When  the  consociational  principles  embodied  in  the  Saybrook  Articles  were 
endorsed  by  the  General  Court  and  commended  to  the  churches,  it  refused  by 
formal  vote  to  adopt  them,  thus  showing  its  rigid  adherence  to  those  views  of 
polity  upon  which  the  mother  Church  was  founded,  and  which  itself  had  carried 
away  on  its  removal. 

J.  p.  29.  The  following  is  a  copy  of  the  Half-way  Covenant  as  used  by 
Rev.  William  Hart,  and  is  probably  the  same  as  that  used  by  Mr.  Buckingham 
and  Mr.  Mather : 

"  The  Form  of  renewing  the  Covenant  by  those  who  do  not  come  to  Full 
Communion. 

"  I  acknowledge  it  a  great  favour  of  heaven  to  me,  that  I  was  devoted  to  God 
by  Baptism  in  my  Infancy,  &  that  I  have  been  instructed  in  my  Christian  duty 
and  priviledges,  and  that  notwithstanding  all  my  careless  neglects  of  and  de- 
partures from  my  duty,  God  is  yet  waiting  on  me  to  be  gracious,  and  continuing 
to  me  the  offers  of  his  Covenant  Mercy  &  Grace.  I  do  therefore  renew  the  bap- 
tismal Covenant  &  consecration  of  myself  to  God  by  Jesus  Christ,  deliberately 
and  formally  resolving  and  promising  before  God,  by  the  help  of  his  grace,  to 
leave  the  practice  of  all  known  sin,  and  to  renounce  the  Lusts  of  the  world,  the 
flesh  and  the  devil.  I  do  now  avouch  &  choose  the  God  and  father  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  who  made  &  governs  heaven  and  earth,  and  all  things  in  them,  as 
my  God  and  father,  and  the  God  of  my  seed ;  and  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  who 
-dyed  for  the  redemption  of  sinners  as  my  Prophet  and  Teacher,  as  my  high  priest 


-78- 

and  righteous  mediator,  as  my  Lord  and  Saviour,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Spirit 
of  the  Father  for  my  sanctifier. 

"  I  make  choice  of  Heaven  as  my  final  inheritance  and  the  Laws  of  Christ 
as  the  rule  of  my  life.  And  that  I  may  be  taught  and  assisted  of  God  to  know 
and  practice  my  duty  in  all  things,  I  resolve  to  attend  diligently  upon  the 
appointed  means  of  grace,  and  in  particular  to  give  diligence  to  become  satisfyed 
of  my  preparation  for  the  Lord's  Supper,  and  so  to  come  and  attend  upon  it. 
I  now  submit  myself  to  the  Watch  and  Discipline  of  this  Church,  beseeching  the 
prayers  of  God's  people  for  me,  that  I  may  be  enabled  to  perform  my  vows  to- 
the  Lord." 

K.  p.  29.  The  old  cemetery  at  Saybrook  Point,  called  also  the  "  Lower 
Cemetery,"  or  "  Cypress  Cemetery,"  was  laid  out  during  the  first  year  of  the 
settlement,  1636,  by  Lion  Gardiner,  being  included  by  him  in  his  plan  of  the 
town  plot.  The  first  generation  of  settlers  was  buried  there,  but  their  graves. 
cannot  be  identified.  The  most  ancient  stone  upon  which  there  is  a  legible 
inscription,  with  the  exception  of  that  which  marks  the  reentombed  remains  of 
Lady  Fenwick,  is  that  which  bears  the  name  of  Susannah,  daughter  of  Nathaniel 
Lynde,  aged  4^  years,  who  died  in  1685.  The  "  Upper  Cemetery,"  near  the 
Railroad  Junction,  was  laid  out  in  1787,  by  a  Committee  of  the  proprietors  of 
the  Town  Commons.  The  "  New  Cemetery,"  located  between  the  main  street 
and  the  river,  was  set  apart  by  the  town  in  1844.  The  Roman  Catholic  Ceme- 
tery dates  back  to  1862. 

It  is  an  interesting,  but  almost  incredible,  fact,  that  for  one  hundred  and 
seventy-five  years  after  the  settlement  of  Saybrook,  the  coffins  of  the  dead,  except 
in  the  case  of  children,  were  laid  upon  a  simple  framed  bier  and  borne  to  the 
grave  upon  men's  shoulders.  No  matter  what  was  the  distance  to  the  place  of 
burial,  or  how  severe  was  the  weather,  this  last  service  was  regarded  as  due  from 
all  the  acquaintances  and  fellow-townsmen  of  the  deceased  person  in  the  neigh- 
borhood, who  had  strength  to  render  it.  This  burdensome  custom  came  to  its. 
close  November  4,  1812,  when  Capt.  Elisha  Hart  sent  the  following  communi- 
cation to  the  Committee  of  the  First  Ecclesiastical  Society  of  Saybrook,  who 
presented  the  same  to  the  Society  at  its  annual  meeting  for  their  action  : 

"  Gentlemen — The  subscriber  not  having  been  permitted  to  unite  with  his- 
neighbors  in  the  burden  of  the  interment  of  the  dead,  owing  to  a  dislocated  ankle 
in  early  life,  and  having  a  desire  to  contribute  to  the  relief  of  those  who  have  at 
all  times  so  promptly  executed  the  last  services  due  to  the  dead,  he  will  be 
happy  to  present  the  parish  with  a  hearse  for  the  above  purpose,  if  it  will  be 

accepted. 

"  From  their  obedient  servant, 

"  ELISHA  HART." 

In  response  to  this  generous  offer,  the  Society  voted  to  accept  the  gift  with! 
thanks,  and  to  build  a  hearse-house  in  the  upper  burying-ground. 

L.  p.  33.  These  four  pews  in  the  gallery  gave  the  Ecclesiastical  Society  a 
deal  of  trouble.  The  custom  in  the  seating  of  the  house  was,  that  while  the 
adults  and  the  children  should  occupy  the  ground  floor,  the  young  people  were 
to  find  accommodation  in  the  galleries — the  young  women  in  the  east  gallery  and! 
the  young  men  in  the  west.  Hence  there  was  this  restriction  attached  to  the 


— 79r- 

renting  of  these  four  pews,  viz.,  that  the  two  easternmost  ones  should  be  occu- 
pied only  by  females,  and  the  two  westernmost  by  males  only.  But,  in  spite  of 
the  restriction,  the  young  men  and  maidens  would  get  together  during  the  hour 
of  worship  for  purposes  of  social  entertainment.  The  simple  restriction  proved 
unavailing  to  check  the  evil ;  and,  in  1814,  more  decisive  measures  were  taken. 
A  division  fence  was  constructed  in  the  passage  way  or  aisle  between  the  two 
classes  of  pews,  and  the  following  vote  was  passed : 

"  That  the  pews  in  the  gallery  be  sold  under  the  following  restriction,  viz., 
that  the  females  shall  not  occupy  the  two  westernmost  pews,  and  that  the  males 
shall  not  occupy  the  two  easternmost  pews  ;  and  that  every  person  who  shall  be 
guilty  of  a  breach  of  the  foregoing  restriction  shall  forfeit  and  pay  three  dollars 
and  thirty-four  cents  for  each  and  every  such  offence  for  the  use  of  the  Society  ; 
and  the  Society  Committee  are  hereby  authorized  and  directed  to  prosecute 
accordingly." 

M.  p.  65.  The  following  list  embraces  the  names  of  the  ministers  who 
have  been  raised  up  in  the  families  of  this  Church  and  congregation.  The  last 
three  are  those  who  were  brought  into  the  Church  under  Dr.  Zabriskie's 
pastorate :  Stephen  Buckingham,  Samuel  Whittlesey,  Daniel  Chapman,  Benja- 
min Lord,  D.  D. ,  Daniel  Taylor,  Joseph  Willard,  Jedediah  Buckingham,  Daniel 
"Kirtland,  Hezekiah  Chapman,  Isaac  Chalker,  Ezekiel  J.  Chapman,  Elijah 
Blague,  Charles  Chapman,  Harvey  Bushnell,  Jackson  J.  Bushnell,  Joseph  A. 
Canfield,  William  Champlm,  Elias  Dudley,  Henry  A.  Bushnell,  D.  D.,  John  E. 
Bushnell,  and  Edward  M.  Chapman. 

N.  p.  71.  The  population  (in  1890)  of  the  several  towns  which  have  been 
•carved  out  of  the  original  town  of  Saybrook  with  their  respective  grand  lists  (in 
.1896)  is  as  follows: 

Old  Saybrook,  Population  ....    1,484.      Grand  List,  $597,225 

Saybrook,  Population 1,484.  "  679,846 

Essex,  Population 2>°35-  "  975i998 

Westbrook,  Population 874.  "  482,623 

Chester,  Population 1,301.  "  482,023 

Old  Lyme,  Population 1,319-  "  452,I49 

Lyme,  Population 977.  "  266,438 

East  Lyme,  Population 2,048.  "  687,387 

'Towns  on  the  west  side  of  the  river,  Pop'n.  .  7,178.   Grand  List,  $3,217,715 

Towns  on  the  east  side  of  the  river,  Population,  4,344.  "  1,405,974 

All  the  towns 11,522.  "  4,623,689 

In  this  table  no  account  is  made  of  the  fact  that  the  territory  of  East  Saybrook 
-was  originally  somewhat  less  than  that  which  is  now  included  in  the  three 
Lymes. 

The  following  list  embraces  the  churches  of  the  different  denominations 
•which  have  been  organized  within  the  limits  of  the  original  town,  on  the  west 
.side  of  the  river,  with  the  dates  of  their  organization  : 


-8o— 


1.  Old  Saybrook,  1646. 

2.  Centerbrook,  1725. 

3.  Westbrook,  1726. 

4.  Chester,  1742. 


CONGREGATIONAL. 


5.  Deep  River,  1834. 

6.  Essex,  1852. 

7.  Swedish,  Deep  River,  1892. 


Winthrop,  1744. 
Essex,  1811. 


Essex,  1790. 

Old  Saybrook,  1830. 


Deep  River,  1830. 
Chester,  1832. 


EPISCOPAL. 

3.     Westbrook,  1892. 


METHODIST. 


1.  Westbrook,  1807.     Disbanded.  4. 

2.  Westbrook,  1841,  5. 

3.  Deep  River,  1856.      Disbanded.  6. 


Essex,  1824. 

Old  Saybrook,  1837. 

Old  Saybrook,  1853.    Disbanded^ 


1.  Chester,  1853. 

2.  Old  Saybrook,  1862. 


ROMAN   CATHOLIC. 

3.     Essex  (Mission),  1896. 


PRESBYTERIAN. 

I.     Deep  River,  1856.     Disbanded. 

In  the  towns  of  Old  Lyme,  Lyme  and  East  Lyme,  which  include  the  territory- 
known  as  East  Saybrook,  there  are  now  ten  churches,  viz.,  four  Congregational, 
four  Baptist,  and  two  Methodist  Churches.  The  whole  number  on  both  sides  of 
the  river  at  present  (1896)  is  twenty-nine. 


* 

THE   SALUTATIONS 


—OF  THE — 


FIRST  CHURCH  OF  CHRIST, 

HARTFORD. 


NOTE. — The  First  Church  of  Christ  in  Hartford,  as  is  made  clear  by  the 
Historical  Address,  stands  in  an  almost  parental  relation  to  this  church.  It  was 
represented  on  this  occasion  by  the  pastor,  Rev.  Charles  M.  Lamson,  D.  D.,  with 
two  delegates  in  attendance,  by  appointment  of  the  church.  The  Rev.  Dr. 
Lamson  in  a  few  words  expressed  most  felicitously  the  lively  interest  felt  by  the 
church  in  this  anniversary  observance,  and  then  read  the  following  letter  of  greet- 
ing from  the  pastor  emeritus,  Rev.  Geo.  Leon  Walker,  D.  D.,  who  was  not  able 
to  be  present : 

The  First  Church  of  Christ,  Hartford,  to  the  First  Church  of 
Christ  in  Old  Saybrook — GREETING  : 

BRETHREN  AND  FRIENDS — Permit  us  to  extend  to  you  our 
cordial  salutations  in  the  celebration  of  this  auspicious  day. 
It  gives  us  great  pleasure  to  remember  the  special  relation- 
ships which  bind  together  the  old  churches  of  Hartford  and 
Saybrook  and  which  seem  to  allow  us  a  peculiar  title  to 
rejoice  with  you  and  participate  in  your  anniversary. 

We  recall  the  fact  of  the  membership  awhile  with  us  of  the 
estimable  Mrs.  Alice  Fenwick,  wife  of  the  founder  of  Say- 
brook  Colony,  while  as  yet  church  privileges  were  not  estab- 
lished in  your  settlement,  and  the  interesting  incident  of  her 
bringing  her  child  to  Hartford  to  be  baptized  by  our  church's 
pastor. 

We  take  satisfaction  in  the  tradition  that  when,  in  1646 
your  church  was  organized,  our  pastor,  Mr.  Hooker,  and  our 
teacher,  Mr.  Stone,  were  present  with  you  on  this  occasion  to 
express  the  fellowship  of  the  Congregational  churches  in  this 
almost  wilderness  land,  and  that  the  pastor  of  your  selection 


—82— 

then  set  in  office,  the  Rev.  James  Fitch,  whose  ability  and 
piety  are  among  Connecticut's  sacred  remembrances,  was  a 
beloved  student  for  years  here  in  Hartford  with  our  Mr. 
Hooker  and  Mr.  Stone. 

It  is  pleasant  for  us  to  know  that  the  impress  upon  your 
pastor's  mind  respecting  the  quality  of  the  spiritual  life  in  the 
Hartford  church  was  such  that,  ten  years  after  the  death  of 
the  latest  surviving  of  his  instructors,  Mr.  Fitch,  in  1676,  in  a 
time  of  public  anxiety  in  the  colony,  was  led  to  write  in 
respect  to  an  appointed  public  fast :  "  We  intend,  God  willing, 
to  take  that  very  day,  solemnly  to  renew  our  covenant  in 
church-state,  according  to  the  example  of  Ezra's  time,  and  as 
was  sometimes  practiced  in  Hartford  congregation  by  Mr. 
Stone,  not  long  after  Mr.  Hooker's  death." 

And  it  is  not  without  its  interest  to  us  to  recall  that,  at  a 
considerably  later  period,  on  the  occasion  of  that  celebrated 
Synod  which  framed  the  Platform  bearing  the  Saybrook 
name,  our  pastor,  Rev.  Timothy  Woodbridge,  united  with 
your  honored  pastor,  Rev.  Thomas  Buckingham,  in  formu- 
lating a  document  which  was  for  so  many  years  the  ecclesi- 
astical constitution  of  Connecticut. 

And  through  the  many  years  since  that  day  we  have  in 
various  ways  recognized  and  profited  by  the  eminency  in 
Connecticut  affairs  of  your  distinguished  ministry ;  among 
whom,  passed  to  their  reward,  it  may  not  be  invidious  to 
mention  the  faithful  Azariah  Mather,  the  exceedingly  able 
William  Hart,  and  the  courteous  and  useful  Frederick  William 
Hotchkiss,  not  forgetting  others,  living  and  dead,  who  have 
been  an  honor  and  blessing  to  you  and  to  the  whole  common- 
wealth. 

These  associations  give  us — over  and  beyond  the  general 
interest  which  belongs  to  the  honorable  history  of  your 
church  and  its  two  hundred  and  fiftieth  anniversary — a  sense 
of  somewhat  peculiar  kinship,  and  a  feeling  of  special  glad- 
ness in  your  joy. 

May  this  anniversary  occasion,  in  all  its  exercises  and 
recollections,  be  one  of  happiness  and  lasting  benefit  to  you 
all.  May  the  covenant  established  with  the  fathers  so  many 


-83- 

-generations  ago,  be  fulfilled  to  you  and  your  children  for 
generations  to  come. 

The  Lord  bless  you  and  keep  you.  The  Lord  make  his  face 
Jo  shine  upon  you  and  be  gracious  unto  you.  The  Lord  lift  up 
Ms  countenance  upon  you  and  give  you  peace. 

By  vote  and  in  behalf  of  the  First  Church  of  Christ  in 
Hartford,  July  i,  1896. 

CHARLES  M.  LAMSON,  \  p 

GEO.  LEON  WALKER,  Pastor  Em.,/ * 

CHARLES  T.  WELLS,  Clerk. 


THE  FOUNDERS. 


An  Address  for  the  Two  Hundred  and  Fiftieth  Anniversary 

— OF  THE— 

FIRST  CHURCH  IN  OLD  SAYBROOK, 

JULY  i,  1896. 


NOTE. — The  Rev.  Edward  M.  Chapman  (Associate  Pastor  of  the  Central 
•Church,  Worcester,  Mass.),  is  a  son  of  this  church,  and  represents  four  of  the 
families  of  its  founders,  viz.  :  Robert  Chapman,  William  Bushnell,  William 
Pratt,  and  William  Lord. 

THE   FOUNDERS,   1646. 


REV.    EDWARD   M.    CHAPMAN. 


Mr.  Chairman,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen  : 

It  is  not  without  some  slight  embarrassment  that  I  attempt 
this  afternoon  the  pious  task  of  responding  for  the  Founders 
•of  this  Church.  The  task  is  literally  pious,  inasmuch  as  there 
must  have  been  at  least  four  direct  ancestors  of  my  own 
.among  that  company  ;  but  it  is  none  the  less  embarrassing 


-84- 

since  I  remember  the  shrewd  apothegm  of  Plutarch,  "  That  it 
is  indeed  a  desirable  thing  to  be  well  descended,  but  the 
glory  belongs  to  our  ancestors."  Yet  it  is  a  very  grateful  task 
withal,  and  since  my  time  is  of  the  briefest,  I  will  essay  it 
without  further  introduction. 

I  wish  that  it  were  possible  to  present  here  some  picture  of 
the  far-off  Saybrook  of  1646  which  should  be  at  once  minute 
and  graphic.  We  would  give  much  for  authentic  portraits  of 
that  group  in  the  Great  Hall  of  the  Fort  which  should  reveal 
to  us  the  outward  seeming  of  feature,  form  and  dress,  of 
those  from  whom  so  many  of  us  are  sprung.  But  that  may 
not  be,  and,  for  one,  I  respect  them  too  much  to  attempt  to 
be  wise  beyond  what  is  written ;  tricking  these  worthies  out 
in  shreds  of  rhetoric  and  clothing  them  with  vain  imaginings. 

We  may  be  quite  certain,  however,  that  the  place  of  meet- 
ing was  the  Great  Hall  of  the  Fort,  which  had  now  for  some 
ten  years  been  the  centre  of  the  corporate  life  of  the  little 
community.  Thither,  no  doubt,  on  a  February  day  nine 
years  before,  Lion  Gardiner  and  Robert  Chapman  had 
brought  the  two  sorely  wounded  men,  whose  retreat  from 
the  neck  of  land  between  the  coves  they  had  covered  with 
naked  swords,  leaving  two  or  three  other  companions  shot 
dead  with  Pequot  arrows.  From  this  same  Hall  one  evening, 
the  Indians  tried  three  times  to  draw  the  little  garrison,  as 
Gardiner  says,  "  before  we  could  finish  our  short  supper,  for 
we  had  little  to  eat."  But  the  alarms  proved  empty  in  this 
particular  instance,  and  there  appears  to  have  been  some  grim 
joke  about  it  all,  since  long  after,  Gardiner,  writing  to  Robert 
Chapman  and  Thomas  Hurlburt,  reminded  them  of  the  fun 
of  it.  There,  too,  it  may  well  be,  those  cheerful  souls  hatched 
what  they  called  "  their  pretty  pranks  "  during  the  very  mid- 
night of  the  Pequot  war,  and  thither  they  returned  from  some 
little  expedition  into  what  seems  to  us  the  very  jaws  of  death, 
laughing  so  heartily  that  four  and  twenty  years  afterward, 
Gardiner  remembered  and  made  note  of  it. 

I  mention  this  because  there  is  so  common  a  notion  that 
the  early  Connecticut  settlers  nursed  a  habit  of  mind  that  was 
sombre  if  not  morose ;  and  that  they  looked  out  upon  the 


-85- 

new  world  to  which  they  had  come  through  jaundiced  eyes 
and  crept  about  in  it  as  though  under  the  impending  wrath  of 
God.  There  is  very  much  to  lead  us  to  believe  this  notion 
to  be  as  false  as  it  is  common.  It  is  quite  true  that  these 
men  and  women  must  have  found  their  life  a  difficult  and 
solemn  thing.  The  capture  and  awful  death  by  torture  of 
several  of  their  scant  company,  the  unremitting  peril  that 
found  significant  expression  in  the  fact  that  even  the  cows 
sometimes  came  in  from  Cornfield  Point  with  arrows  sticking 
in  their  sides,  the  annual  struggle  with  the  stubborn  earth 
and  the  hard  winter  for  means  of  subsistence,  and  the  dis- 
appointment of  their  expectation  of  important  reinforcement 
from  England,  were  circumstances  little  calculated  to  minister 
to  carelessness  of  life.  But  they  had  come  from  home  under 
the  impulse  of  distinct  religious  and  political  conviction,  and 
they  proved  themselves  a  simple,  brave,  God-fearing  folk,  with 
little  leaning  toward  the  use  of  cant,  so  far  as  we  can  dis- 
cover, but  with  a  very  honest  and  cheerful  determination  to- 
make  the  best  of  hard  conditions.  Early  letters  show 
that  they  had  a  garden  at  the  Fort,  seemingly  for  pleasure 
and  adornment  as  well  as  for  convenience,  and  that,  even 
earlier  than  the  date  we  are  commemorating,  they  had 
set  out  a  goodly  store  of  apple  and  cherry  trees — though  the 
insects  were  making  havoc  with  the  former.  But  at  this  time 
most  of  them  were  poor  and  immediately  dependent  upon  the 
labor  of  their  hands.  In  turning  over  some  unpublished 
manuscripts  in  the  British  Museum  the  other  day,  I  found 
several  letters  from  Fenwick  to  his  English  friends  wherein 
he  expresses  his  conviction  that  the  settlement  was  never 
likely  to  return  him  the  capital  which  he  had  invested  in  it. 
Among  other  things  he  acknowledges  the  receipt  of  "  8  pairs, 
of  the  finest  woman's  stockings,"  which  he  had  sent  to  New 
Haven  to  be  sold,  as  they  were  too  fine  to  be  put  on  here. 
By  the  time  the  church  was  organized  he  had  returned  to 
England.  Lady  Fenwick  had  died,  probably  during  the  pre- 
ceding autumn,  but  it  is  likely  that  her  two  little  daughters 
were  still  at  the  Fort,  though  scarcely  old  enough  to  be 
present  at  the  services  in  the  Great  Hall. 


—86— 

Thus  it  must  have  been  a  fairly  homogeneous  company  of 
plain  people  who  recognized  that  their  permanent  lot  was 
cast  in  the  new  settlement,  that  gathered  for  the  solemn  act 
of  organizing  a  church  and  ordaining  a  minister.  Concerning 
Thomas  Hooker  of  Hartford,  who  stands  among  the  founders 
of  New  England,  and  James  Fitch,  who  was  that  day  or- 
dained to  the  ministry  and  of  whom  we  heard  this  morning, 
I  need  say  nothing.  But  you  will  let  me  introduce  to  you 
Lieut.  William  Pratt,  who  had  already  settled  six  or  eight 
miles  to  the  north  of  the  Fort,  and  who  with  his  neighbors  in 
their  fortified  houses  formed  the  nucleus  of  Centrebrook  and 
Essex.  He  was  prominent  in  church  and  town  affairs. 

There,  too,  was  Captain  Robert  Chapman,  with  his  wife, 
Anna  Bliss.  He  had  come  to  Saybrook  when  but  eighteen 
or  nineteen  years  of  age  with  Lion  Gardiner,  and  for  half  a 
-century  the  story  of  his  life  is  the  history  of  the  settlement. 
He  helped  to  build  and  fortify  the  Fort;  with  Gardiner  he 
marked  the  town  boundaries  ;  he  assisted  in  organizing  the 
church  ;  forty-three  times  he  represented  the  town  in  the 
General  Court,  and  nine  times  he  was  chosen  Governor's 
assistant ;  while  to  him  and  Mr.  Buckingham  belongs  the 
credit  of  thwarting  Sir  Edmund  Andros  in  his  attempt  to  gain 
possession  of  the  Fort.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that,  in  con- 
nection with  his  will  and  that  of  one  of  his  sons,  there  appear 
the  familiar  names  of  Abraham  Chalker,  Stephen  Chalker, 
and  George  Denison. 

Side  by  side  with  these  should  be  set  Lieut.  William  Bush- 
nell,  who  was  from  the  first  an  important  factor  in  the  life  of 
church  and  town.  According  to  tradition,  he  built  the  first 
•meeting-house,  and  records  prove  that  with  his  son  he  built 
the  second.  He  also  received  on  one  occasion  six  shillings  for 
mending  the  drum  which  served  to  call  the  people  together 
on  Sundays  and  town-meeting  days;  and  again  ten  shillings 
six-pence  for  making  pikes,  presumably  for  the  eight  soldiers 
who  flanked  the  meeting-house  door.  To  him  and  his  wife, 
Rebecca  Chapman  Bushnell,  were  born  a  family  of  boys,  who 
sent  down  to  posterity  such  men  as  Dr.  Horace  Bushnell,  the 
theologian,  Cornelius  Stanton  Bushnell,  whose  connection 


-87- 

with    the   inventor    Erricson    made   the   construction    of  the. 
Monitor  possible,  and  the  Rev.  Professor  Samuel  Hart. 

It  is  probable,  moreover,  though  not  absolutely  certain,, 
that  Richard  Bushnell,  the  ancestor  of  our  honored  guest,  the 
Governor  of  Ohio,  was  present  and  participated  in  the  organi- 
zation. 

There,  too,  was  Thomas  Leffingwell,  the  ancestor  of  Judge 
Nathaniel  Shipman  of  Hartford.  He  was  an  ensign  at  the 
Fort  during  the  Pequot  war,  and  his  daring  exploit  in  taking 
a  canoe  filled  with  provisions  to  the  relief  of  Uncas  when 
besieged  by  the  Narragansetts  at  Shattuck's  Point,  just  below 
Norwich,  forms  one  of  the  most  romantic  incidents  in  the 
early  story  of  the  settlement. 

Time  fails  me  to  speak  of  others  as  I  would  fain  do.  Yet 
I  must  not  forget  Deacon  Francis  Bushnell,  who  united  with 
the  church  soon  after  its  organization.  Through  the  line  of 
his  sons  he  became  the  ancestor  of  the  family  that  has  played 
so  prominent  and  honorable  a  part  in  Saybrook  affairs  during 
the  present  century  ;  while  among  the  descendants  in  the  line 
of  his  daughters,  were  the  Rev.  Samuel  Johnson,  President  of 
King's  College  ;  William  Samuel  Johnson,  first  President  of 
Columbia  College  ;  the  late  Chief  Justice  Hosmer  ;  and 
James  B.  Hosmer,  Esq.,  the  benefactor  of  Hartford  Theo- 
logical Seminary. 

Nor  ought  I  to  neglect  Mrs.  Thomas  Lee,  whose  husband 
had  died  of  small-pox  on  the  voyage  from  England,  leaving 
her  with  three  children.  Of  these,  one  daughter  married 
Samuel  Hyde  at  Saybrook  in  1659,  and  became  the  progeni- 
tress of  many  notabilities,  including  the  present  President  of 
the  United  States. 

But  since  any  list,  however  long  drawn  out,  must  yet 
remain  incomplete,  I  had  best  stop  here,  mentioning  only  the 
names  of  Thomas  Adgate,  William  Lord,  Thomas  Bliss, 
Robert  Lay,  Lieut.  Thomas  Tracy,  and  their  wives,  while 
Matthew  Griswold,  William  Parker,  and  Reynold  Marvin 
were  probably,  though  not  certainly,  present.  It  is  a  roll  of 
unpretentious  but  wholly  honorable  names.  And  if  to-day 
we  were  to  begin  life  again,  choosing,  as  Dr.  Holmes  used  to 


—88— 

say  every  man  ought  to  choose,  his  own  grandparents,  I,  for 
one,  know  of  none  to  whom  I  would  more  gladly  trace  my 
ancestry.  It  may  not  be  amiss,  however,  while  we  honor 
these  memories  and  congratulate  ourselves  upon  our  heri- 
tage, to  recall  those  old  lines  from  "  Young's  Night 
Thoughts,"  which  I  suppose  no  one  reads  to-day : 

"  They  that  on  glorious  ancestors  enlarge, 
Produce  their  debt  instead  of  their  discharge." 


THE    FIRST    CHURCH    OF    NORWICH. 

(ORGANIZED  FROM  THIS  CHURCH  IN  1660.) 


BY  REV.  CHAS.  A.  NORTHROP,  PASTOR. 


Venerable  Mother  : 

The  circumstances  which  led  to  the  founding  of  Norwich, 
if  not  "  imperious  "  were  certainly  attractive  enough.  Prom- 
ising as  Saybrook  was,  it  was  not  as  we  think,  the  land  of 
promise.  Our  Moses  (yours  and  ours),  Major  Mason,  had 
aforetime  learned  and  seen  that  the  land  of  Mohegan  was  a 
land  of  brooks  and  mountains,  well  watered  and  fertile;  a 
land  which  the  Lord  our  God  seemed  to  smile  upon  ;  and  he 
had  Joshua  for  his  minister.  Him,  therefore,  he  took,  the 
holy  warrior  with  the  sword  of  the  Spirit  ever  girt  on  his 
thigh,  the  revered  James  Fitch,  and  with  them  went,  accord- 
ing to  the  monumental  truth  cut  into  the  tablet  that  still 
-marks  the  minister's  grave,  —  "the  greater  part  of  his  church." 

I  am  here  to-day,  with  all  the  gray  hairs  I  can  command, 
a  representative  of  that  colony,  to  recall  and  recount  to  you 
•the  five  points  in  the  history  of  your  first-born  which  you 


-89- 

may  be  most  interested  to  know.  I  want  to  speak,  in  the 
briefest  way  consistent  with  clearness,  of:  I.  The  Proprietors; 
II.  Their  Incoming;  III.  Their  Ongoing;  IV.  Their  Out- 
going ;  V.  Their  Legacy. 

i.  The  Proprietors  were  men  in  the  prime  of  life.  Samuel 
Hyde  was  23;  Simon  Huntington,  31;  John  Birchard,  32 ; 
John  Olmstead  and  John  Post,  34  ;  Thomas  Leffingwell 
and  James  Fitch,  38 ;  Thomas  Adgate,  40 ;  Thomas  Tracy, 
50;  Hugh  Calkins  and  John  Mason,  60.  The  character  of 
the  men  you  sent  us  was  the  chief  cause  of  the  peace  and 
prosperity  that  have  been  ours  from  the  first.  Fitch  was 
learned,  zealous,  beloved  by  Englishmen  and  Indians.  Mason 
was  stern,  self-reliant,  honorable  and  honored.  Hyde  and 
Huntington  and  Leffingwell  and  Tracy  were  of  good  stock. 
Adgate,  our  Melchizedec,  "  without  father  or  mother,  without 
beginning  of  days,"  so  far  as  it  is  known,  but  whose  years  did 
have  an  end  after  numbering  eighty-seven,  came  to  us  deacon, 
beginning,  with  that  all-around  Welshman,  Hugh  Calkins, 
that  somewhat  remarkable  succession  of  deacons  in  our 
church,  so  largely  monopolized  by  men  of  the  Huntington 
name.  The  Adgates,  father  and  son,  served  as  deacons 
eighty-nine  years.  Seven  Huntingtons  have  held  the  dia- 
conate  201  out  of  236  years,  while  others  of  the  same  name 
have  been  progenitors  of  like  successions  in  other  churches. 

The  founders  of  Norwich  were  men  of  good  family  and 
of  good  principles ;  from  the  respectable  middle  classes  of 
England,  with  a  dash  or  two  of  aristocracy;  capable  and 
diligent  in  business;  in  comfortable  circumstances.  They 
came  to  work.  They  were  wheelwrights,  and  millers,  and 
merchants,  and  surveyors,  and  shoemakers,  and  brewers,  and 
tanners,  and  cutlers,  and  stone-cutters,  and  carpenters,  and 
farmers.  The  fact  that  some  of  them  could  not  write  their 
names,  did  not  prevent  them  from  making  a  name.  If  "  Old 
Goodman  Hide  "could  only  make  his  mark  in  acknowledging 
a  receipt,  he  did  leave  one  son,  Samuel,  who,  dying  at  the  age 
of  40,  left  five  sons  and  two  daughters.  These  five  sons  had 
forty  children,  twenty-three  of  them  sons,  of  whom  twenty- 
one  married  and  reared  families.  If  Deacon  Calkins  was 


—9o— 

obliged  or  preferred  to  write  a  big  X  for  his  name,  he  was 
a  man  of  diversified  talent  and  a  wide  range  of  information. 

The  departure  of  these  men  from  Saybrook  weakened,  but 
did  not  destroy,  the  life  of  the  mother  church.  Saybrook 
influence  overshadowed  and  undergirded  the  new  church 
colony  for  over  a  century,  for  all  it  would  have  none  of  the 
Saybrook  Platform.  Fitch  and  Woodward  and  Lord,  serving 
in  its  ministry  for  124  years,  made  it  impossible  that  Norwich 
could  forget  Saybrook.  Fitch,  our  first  minister,  was  your 
first.  Woodward  was  a  scribe  of  the  Saybrook  Synod.  The 
year  before  Fitch  died,  a  blue-eyed  boy  was  born  in  Say- 
brook,  called  Benjamin,  "the  son  of  my  right  hand,"  who- 
afterwards  became  to  the  new  colony  what  his  name  implied^. 
acting  as  a  mediator  more  than  once  in  the  church,  divided 
and  distressed  over  Woodward's  Saybrook  Platform  pro- 
clivities and  over  the  New  Light  excitement  of  a  few  jrears 
later.  Dr.  Benjamin  Lord  brought  peace  in  his  day,  changed 
a  Marah  and  a  Meribah  into  a  Salem,  and  deepened  our 
affection  for  mother  Saybrook.  Interchange  by  marriage  and 
mutual  acquaintance  appropriately  kept  alive  your  proprie- 
tary rights  to  loving  remembrance  and  loyal  affection.  Dr. 
Lord,  himself,  was  a  nephew  of  the  first  child  born  in  the  new 
settlement, — Elizabeth  Hyde. 

I  might  add,  also,  that  as  our  third  pastor  was  born  in 
Saybrook,  so  was  the  third  pastor  of  the  Second  Society  of 
Norwich  (now  Franklin), — Dr.  Samuel  Nott  (1754-1852), 
Two  years  before  Dr.  Lord  was  ordered  home,  Dr.  Nott  was 
ordained  (1782)  at  Franklin,  and  continued  his  ministry  until. 
1852.  So  that  out  of  Saybrook  has  come  a  healing  ministry 
of  almost  200  years. 

2.  Their  Incoming.  They  came  not  as  conquerors,  but  as 
purchasers.  The  nine-mile  square  which  they  bought  of  the 
Mohegan  sachems  they  paid  for.  They  allotted  the  land  and 
proceeded  to  occupy  it.  They  came  by  families, — after  due 
preparation.  So  busy  were  they  in  moving  and  improving,, 
that  they  neglected  to  do  and  record  many  things  which  we 
of  to-day  would  gladly  know.  About  the  only  certainty  of 
these  early  days  is  that  they  came.  They  did  not  know,  them- 


selves,  a  little  later,  where  their  possessions  lay.  They  were 
not  adventurers,  and  so  had  few  quarrels.  They  were  men 
with  families,  many  of  them.  There  were  more  children  than 
parents  in  the  new  colony.  The  two  leaders  had  given 
hostages  to  fortune  to  the  value  of  thirteen  children  between 
them, — afterwards  increased  to  twenty-one. 

There  was  order  and  organization.  Soon  after  their  coming, 
they,  along  with  others,  "  were  incorporated  into  a  Religious 
Society  and  Church-State."  Their  state  was  meant  to  be 
Christian.  Their  church  was  in  and  for  society.  It  mattered 
not  whether  they  said  church  or  society.  They  meant  the 
same  thing.  The  three  primary,  fundamental  social  organiza- 
tions were  all  here, — Family,  Church,  State. 

For  sixty  years,  town  and  church  affairs  were  recorded 
together.  After  that,  the  church  records  were  called,  "  Town 
Plot  Society  Records."  The  town  clerk  was  generally  the 
church  clerk. 

3.  Their  Ongoing.  My  thought  will  carry  us  only  to  the 
close  of  Dr.  Lord's  life,  1784, — one  hundred  and  twenty-four 
years  after  the  settlement. 

Statewise.  Coming  in  as  planters,  both  of  the  soil  and  the 
new  church-state,  they,  in  general,  led  quiet  and  peaceable 
lives,  with  some  godliness  and  much  honesty.  They  were  at 
peace  with  the  Indians,  singularly  free  from  surprises  and 
massacres  such  as  befell  other  settlements  in  New  England. 
They  held  offices,  and  held  on  to  them.  They  believed  in 
Civil  Service  Reform.  They  seem  to  have  had  good  men  in 
office,  and  they  kept  them  in.  For  eighty  years  the  town 
offices  were  limited  to  the  families  of  the  first  proprietors. 
John  Birchard  was  town  clerk  for  eighteen  years,  probably 
with  a  Saybrook  experience  behind  him ;  Richard  Bushnell, 
for  thirty  years.  Six  generations  of  Huntingtons  held  the 
town  clerkship  for  one  hundred  and  fifty-two  years  (1678- 
1830) — with  the  single  exception  of  one  year,  and  then  a 
Tracy  got  it  (Samuel  Tracy,  1770).  They  re-elected  again 
and  again  their  deputies  to  the  General  Court.  Richard 
Bushnell,  Deacon  Adgate's  step-son,  who  went  to  Norwich, 
a  boy  of  eight  years,  was  a  phenomenon  in  this  and  many 


—92— 

other  respects.  He  served  thirty-eight  sessions  in  the  General 
Court,  and  seems  to  have  been  always  in  some  public  office. 
He  was  townsman,  and  constable,  and  schoolmaster ;  sergeant, 
lieutenant  and  captain  of  the  train  band,  town  agent,  justice  of 
the  peace,  clerk  and  Speaker  of  the  House,  for  many  years. 
He  is  living  to-day — Richard  Bushnell,  of  Norwich,  still 
holding  public  office. 

Laborious  and  frugal,  the  proprietors  bequeathed  property. 
Homesteads  remained  in  the  family  for  nearly  a  hundred 
years.  The  second  generation  were  fairly  well  to  do.  They 
were  alive  to  trade.  At  Dr.  Lord's  death  (1784)  twenty 
business  enterprises,  with  Col.  Christopher  Leffingwell  as 
versatile  chief,  were  in  operation  around  the  town  plot.  They 
opened  up  the  way  to  the  "  Landing,"  and  began  to  go  down 
to  the  sea  in  ships. 

Nor  were  they  less  patriotic.  The  same  Col.  Leffingwell, 
who  excelled  as  a  merchant  and  manufacturer,  was  also  chief 
among  the  Revolutionary  Committee  of  Correspondence  in 
1775,  and  shared  with  the  Huntingtons  the  admiration  of  his 
town,  and  the  thanks  of  his  country  for  his  distinguished 
military  services. 

As  to  their  ongoings  in  the  matter  of  marriage  and  off- 
spring, the  record  of  "Old  Goodman  Hide"  before  mentioned, 
was  not  very  exceptional.  The  proprietors  and  their  early 
descendants,  while  not  polygamists,  had  generally  two  wives, 
sometimes  three,  rarely  four.  Widows  remarried  then  as 
now,  without  exciting  much  remark.  The  interlacing,  twist- 
ing, and  double  twisting  of  family  lines  made  a  cord  which 
could  not  easily  be  broken.  Each  man's  neighbor  was  his 
relative.  They  lived  to  a  good  old  age,  and  saw  their 
children's  children,  and  peace  upon  the  new  Israel.  Of  the 
first  proprietors,  when  they  died,  Thomas  Leffingwell  was 
92  ;  Dea.  Calkins,  90  ;  Dea.  Adgate,  87 ;  Thomas  Bingham, 
88 ;  James  Fitch,  80 ;  Simon  Huntington,  77 ;  Richard 
Bushnell  and  Thomas  Tracy,  75  ;  John  Birchard,  72  ;  John 
Mason,  72. 

To  learning  they  gave  little  heed.  The  early  schools  were 
few  and  of  short  terms.  In  1700  Norwich  was  indicted  by 


—93— 

the  courts  "  for  want  of  a  school  to  instruct  children."  Just 
-after  Dr.  Lord's  death,  the  real  educational  movement  began, 
which  has  in  these  late  days  culminated  in  Norwich's  justly 
admired  system  of  schools. 

Churchwise.  These  men  and  citizens  were  also  church 
men.  Ecclesiastical  interests  were  always  dear.  They  built 
a  church,  and  then  another,  and  another,  and  another,  and  we 
-of  to-day  are  worshiping  in  another,  which  has  served  us 
ninety- five  years. 

For  many  years,  the  church  on  the  hill  was  the  only  meet- 
ing-house in  the  nine-mile  square.  The  second  society 
•(Franklin)  was  not  formed  until  1718.  Mr.  Fitch's  parish 
covered  the  nine -mile  square,  and  parts  of  Windham  and 
-Canterbury.  At  Dr.  Lord's  death,  there  were  eight  Congre- 
gational Churches,  five  separate  churches,  and  one  Episcopal 
•Church  in  the  same  territory. 

Ecclesiastical  polity  was  also  dear  to  our  fathers.  A  certain 
marked  jealousy  of  external  authority  has  characterized  the 
church  from  the  first.  It  inherited  from  its  minister  and  first 
pastor,  a  feeling  toward  those  that  are  without,  like  to  that 
which  led,  at  the  Saybrook  ordination  of  Mr.  Fitch,  to  the 
'imposition  of  hands  by  a  presbytery  of  the  church,  rather 
than  by  the  young  pastor's  ecclesiastical  instructors,  Messrs. 
Hooker  and  Stone.  Our  second  pastor,  because  an  advocate  of 
the  Saybrook  Platform,  which  more  than  squinted  at  ecclesi- 
astical oversight,  could  not  be  a  comforter,  and  there  was  no 
peace  until  Woodward  left.  The  ordination  of  Dr.  Lord 
furnished  an  occasion  for  the  church  to  explicitly  renounce 
the  Saybrook  Platform  as  their  code  of  faith,  and  about  that 
time  the  church  set  forth  a  statement  of  the  "  Principles  and 
Polity  of  Congregationalism,"  which  has  been  printed  in  all 
its  successive  manuals,  the  first  section  of  which,  as  to  "  the 
power  of  the  church,"  contains  extracts  from  the  Cambridge 
Platform  of  1648. 

As  to  religious  life,  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  years 
1660-1740  were  years  of  spiritual  declension  in  New  England. 
The  half-way  covenant,  which  the  Norwich  church  adopted, 
was  worse  than  the  Saybrook  Platform,  which  it  would  not 


—94- 

adopt;  and  so  the  growth  of  the  church  in  members  andl 
spiritual  strength  was  hampered.  It  mattered  little  that  the 
same  families  that  for  eighty  years  had  ruled  the  little  com- 
munity in  civil  affairs,  were  getting  their  children  baptized^ 
and  they  in  turn  were  bringing  theirs  to  the  altar.  It  did  not 
mean  sacrifice.  The  broken  heart  and  contrite  spirit  were 
wanting. 

Mr.  Fitch's  successor  found  a  church  of  thirty-five  members. 
When  Dr.  Lord  came  (1717),  the  church  numbered  sixty. 
Three  hundred  and  thirty  were  added  during  the  next  hair 
century.  Dr.  Lord  was  friendly  to  revivals.  Twenty  years 
before  the  great  awakening,  his  own  church  was  blessed  witrt 
a  work  of  grace,  and  quickened  spiritual  interest  along  the 
years  prepared  the  way  for  greater  results  when  Edwards- 
began  and  Whitfteld  and  others  continued  the  work  that 
stirred,  and  sifted,  and  separated,  and  united  the  New  England: 
churches.  New  London  County  was  a  hot-bed  of  "  New 
Light  "  excitement.  Norwich  seems  to  have  been  the  storm- 
center  of  the  movement.  The  storm  passed.  The  air  cleared^ 
The  influence,  on  the  whole,  was  good.  Spiritual  and  ecclesi- 
astical freedom,  and  the  reality  of  conversion  as  compared' 
with  the  vagueness  of  "owning  the  covenant,"  were  the  lasting 
fruits.  It  was  the  beginning  of  the  disestablishment  of  the 
State  Church.  The  voluntary  system  came  in  as  Dr.  Lord. 
passed  away,  and  cleared  the  ground  for  the  larger  exercise 
of  the  missionary  activity  which  the  church  inherited  from  its 
first  pastor.  The  touch  of  John  Eliot  in  old  England,  seems- 
to  have  been  upon  Pastor  Fitch  in  New  England.  Fitch 
sowed  to  the  Mohegans,  and  reaped  Lamson  Occum  and, 
Wheelock's  Indian  School  at  Lebanon.  Out  of  that  school- 
came  Samuel  Kirkland,  and  sowed  to  the  Oneidas  for  nearly 
half  a  century,  and  gave  a  son  to  the  presidency  of  Harvard. 
(J.  T.  Kirkland,  D.  D.,  LL.  D.,  1810-28).  And  when  the 
modern  missionary  movement  sprang  up,  it  found  most 
fertile  soil  along  the  Thames  and  the  Yantic. 

4.     Their  Outgoing.     They  met  in  Norwich  only  to  stajr 
awhile,  and  then  they  moved   outward  and  onward.      The 


—95— 

leaders  set  the  pace.  Mason's  sons,  most  of  them,  settled 
-beyond  the  nine-mile  square.  From  Stonington  to  Lebanon 
-they  were  found.  A  widow  of  his  grandson,  Daniel,  became, 
rby  way  of  Haddam  influences,  the  mother  of  David  Brainerd. 
Pitch's  family,  like  a  cedar  of  Lebanon,  sent  out  lateral 
•branches  from  its  Lebanon  home,  and  spanned  the  stretch 
from  Montville  to  Pomfret.  The  Adgates  and  Calkinses  took 
-an  early  flight.  The  Backuses  sent  forth  Rev.  Isaac,  the 
separatist ;  Rev.  Charles,  the  wisest  man  whom  Dr.  Dwight 
icnew  ;  Rev.  Azel,  the  first  president  of  Hamilton  College, 
and  James,  the  surveyor  of  Marietta:  and  the  name  of 
William  W.  survives  in  the  magnificent  hospital  erected  near 
the  first  landing  place  of  the  fathers.  The  Huntingtons  were 
'everywhere,  from  the  first.  Their  line  went  out  unto  all  the 
earth,  their  words  to  the  ends  of  the  world.  Dea.  Christo- 
pher, the  first  son  born  in  the  new  settlement,  became  grand- 
father to  Dr.  Wheelock,  first  president  of  Dartmouth  College. 
His  brother  John's  daughter,  Martha,  became  ancestress  of 
rU.  S.  Grant.  Baby  Elizabeth  Hyde,  the  first  daughter  of  the 
settlement,  became  ancestress  of  two  and  one-third  octavo 
pages  of  distinguished  men  and  women,  as  recorded  in  the 
""  Norwich  Jubilee,"  from  the  lips  of  Chancellor  Walworth. 
The  Leffingwells  remained,  for  the  most  part,  within  the 
•bounds  of  the  original  purchase.  Their  name  survives  in  a 
-district  called  Leffingwell-town. 

The  coming  of  peace  after  the  Revolution,  the  opening  up 
-of  roads  and  other  means  of  communication,  the  beginning  of 
newspapers,  post-offices,  and  cities, — all  these  served  to 
-quicken  the  outflowing  tide,  just  as  this  record  stops. 

5.  Their  Legacy.  They  left  what  are  now  five  towns,  and 
parts  of  two  others, — all  pieces  of  the  nine-mile  square,  viz. : 
'Bozrah,  Franklin,  Lisbon,  Sprague,  Norwich,  Griswold,  Pres- 
Tton,  while  Lebanon,  Windham,  Mansfield,  Canterbury  and 
Plainfield,  drew  a  large  part  of  their  first  settlers  from  the 
Norwich  colony.  Along  the  Yantic  and  Shetucket,  and 
•Quinebaug,  they  built  their  homes,  and  built  them  into  the 
social,  and  civil,  and  religious  life  of  the  community. 


-96- 

They  left  moral  influences — thrift,  and  neighborly  kindness,, 
and  order,  and  intelligence,  and  patriotism  were  wrought 
into  the  life  of  their  descendants. 

They  left  religious  influences — churches  of  their  own  order 
commanded  the  hill-tops  of  the  new  towns,  and  the  lives  of 
the  dwellers  between.  Other  churches  of  our  common  Lord 
were  springing  up  here  and  there.  Respect  and  love  for  the 
church  was  a  growing  seed,  which,  after  the  awakening, 
began  to  put  forth  fruit.  The  Revolutionary  War  stunted, 
but  did  not  starve  it.  The  revival  at  the  opening  of  this 
century  repaired  it. 

They  left  good  men,  who  entered  into  their  labors,  and 
inviting  fields  for  others  to  enter,  and  though  now  the  roll  of 
the  old  First  Church  of  Norwich  contains  the  name  of  no 
Adgate,  or  Calkins,  or  Tracy,  or  Leffingwell,  or  Post,  or 
Olmstead,  the  names  of  Backus,  and  Bingham,  and  Birchard, 
and  Huntington,  and  Hyde,  do  appear,  the  Hydes  predomi- 
nating in  numbers  as  aforetime. 

To-day,  as  at  the  first,  most  of  the  heads  of  families  are 
farmers  or  wage  earners.  It  takes  more  to  go  around  than  it 
used  to.  Our  first  three  pastors  covered  one  hundred  and 
twenty-four  years.  Our  last  six  cover  one  hundred  and 
twelve  years.  We  shall  never  have  another  Benjamin  Lord, 
ministering  sixty-seven  years.  For  awhile  the  length  of 
ministerial  service  shortened — Strong,  56  years ;  Arms,  46 ; 
Everest,  7;  Scofield,  2.  Of  late  the  tide  has  turned.  Weitzel,. 
10;  Northrop,  u,  may  or  may  not  be  ominous  for  good^ 
But  we  cannot  forget  the  earlier  days.  Bimonthly  we  cele- 
brate the  Lord's  Supper  with  cups  that  were  in  use  in  Dr. 
Lord's  day  in  the  church  on  the  hill  (1722);  and  this  address 
might  have  been  read  to  you  from  between  the  covers  of  Dr. 
Lord's  sermon  case.  If  you  will  not  misunderstand  us,  we 
may  add  that  we  shall  never  forget  the  rock  from  which  we 
were  hewn,  nor  the  hole  of  the  pit  from  which  we  were 
digged. 

A  plain  substantial  monument  stands  on  the  site  of  the  old 
first  burying-ground  of  the  Norwich  Colony.  It  bears  on  its- 
base  the  name  Mason,  while  on  the  four  sides  of  the  shaft  are 


—97— 

cut  the  names  of  those  who  were  associated  with  him  in  the 
founding  of  Norwich.  There  are  thirty-eight  names.  It  has 
stood  there  less  than  thirty-eight  years.  It  was  the  out- 
growth of  our  bi-centennial  in  1859.  With  our  revived  and 
reviving  interest  in  the  ancient  times,  our  children  are  begin- 
ning to  say  unto  us :  "  What  mean  ye  by  this  stone  ?  "  and 
we  are  learning  how  to  tell  them  the  story  which  has  been,  in 
part,  just  told. 

We  have  in  mind  a  worthier  memorial  of  the  Saybrook- 
Norwich  men  of  1660;  a  memorial  which  we  expect  to  erect 
on  the  Green  in  1959,  when  we  trust  you  will  be  present  with 
us  to  help  us  worthily  celebrate  the  3OOth  birthday  anni- 
versary of  your  first-born  child. 


CONNECTICUT    EMIGRATION    TO    OHIO 
AND    ITS    RESULTS 


HON.  ASA  S.  BTJSHNELL,  GOVERNOR  OF  OHIO. 


NOTE. — Gov.  Bushnell  is  a  descendant  of  Richard  Bushnell,  the  youngest  of 
the  three  Bushnell  brothers,  who  were  prominent  in  the  early  history  of  this 
church  and  town. 

Mr.  Chairman,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen,  Friends  : 

I  am  profoundly  grateful  for  the  privilege  I  enjoy  of 
meeting  with  you  here  on  this  most  auspicious  occasion, — 
grateful  to  your  committee  of  arrangements  for  inviting  me, 
and  grateful  to  a  kind  Providence  for  giving  me  health  and 
strength  to  make  the  journey,  and  for  so  arranging  affairs  of 
state  as  that  official  duties  were  not  permitted  to  interfere 
with  my  taking  part  with  you  in  the  exercises  of  this  most 
interesting  celebration  of  the  two  hundred  and  fiftieth  anni- 
versary of  the  founding  of  this  First  Church  in  this  good  old 


-98- 

town  of  Saybrook.  In  the  days  when  our  ancestors  wor- 
shiped here,  it  would  have  required  a  pilgrimage  of  several 
weeks  to  have  reached  the  settlement  from  whence  I  come ; 
but  now,  with  the  modern  conveniences  of  travel,  but  little 
more  than  twenty-four  hours  is  required  to  cover  the  space  ; 
and  I  assure  you,  even  if  the  occasion  were  less  deserving,  I 
would  travel  a  distance  requiring  much  more  time  to  meet  a 
gathering  like  this,  and  esteem  it  only  pleasure.  In  the 
olden  time  it  was  customary  on  occasions  for  thanksgiving 
and  rejoicing  for  the  children  to  come  home  and  gather 
round  the  hearthstone,  and  there,  with  the  parents,  join  in 
prayers  of  thanksgiving  and  songs  of  praise.  And  believing 
and  glorying  in  this  custom  of  my  forefathers,  I  deem  it 
fitting  that  Ohio,  the  daughter  of  this  grand  old  common- 
wealth of  Connecticut,  should,  in  this  day  of  your  rejoicing 
for  the  blessings  of  the  Church,  come  home,  and  around  the 
altar  of  this  First  Church  join  with  you  in  praising  Father, 
Son  and  Holy  Ghost ;  and  for  that  purpose,  my  brethren,  I 
am  here  to-day  ;  as  Chief  Executive  of  the  great  State  of 
Ohio,  I  bring  you  most  cordial  greetings  and  messages  of 
love  and  peace. 

I  have  been  asked  to  say  a  few  words  in  reference  to  Con- 
necticut emigration  to  Ohio  and  its  results.  The  subject  is 
one  of  great  interest,  and  I  might  say  almost  inexhaustible ; 
but  I  will  be  brief  and  touch  upon  a  few  only  of  the  most 
important  events  connected  with  my  subject. 

On  the  first  of  January,  1788,  there  left  Hartford  a  com- 
pany of  about  twenty-five  citizens  under  Gen.  Rufus  Putnam 
to  meet  a  like  number  of  hardy  pioneers  from  Massachusetts 
bound  for  the  Northwest  Territory,  which  had  left  Danvers 
under  the  supervision  of  Major  Halfield  White,  at  Simrall's 
Ferry,  a  point  on  the  Youghiogheny  thirty  miles  below 
where  Pittsburgh  now  stands,  and  from  there  to  proceed  to 
the  mouth  of  the  Muskingum,  in  which  was  then  the  North- 
west Territory.  Their  journey  over  the  mountains  where  the 
foot  of  the  white  man  never  trod  before,  their  dangerous  and 
painful  marches  through  almost  impassable  snows,  have 
scarcely  a  parallel  in  American  history. 


—99— 

The  two  parties  met  at  Simrall's  Ferry  and  proceeded 
down  the  Ohio  to  the  mouth  of  the  Muskingum.  They 
built  a  boat  forty-five  feet  long  and  fifteen  feet  wide,  strong, 
bullet-proof,  and,  true  to  the  memory  of  their  forefathers, 
named  it  the  Mayflower.  She  was  launched  on  the  second 
day  of  April;  with  Captain  Jonathan  Devol  in  command,  they 
started  on  their  journey.  On  the  7th  of  April,  1788,  they 
landed  in  the  rain  at  the  mouth  of  the  Muskingum  River, 
and  thus  the  foundations  of  Ohio  were  laid.  It  has  always 
been  a  source  of  pride  to  me  that  one  of  that  band  of 
pioneers  who  left  the  village  which  has  since  become  your 
beautiful  city  of  Hartford,  was  my  great  uncle,  Daniel  Bush- 
nell,  and  I  congratulate  myself  that  I  to  this  extent  aided  in 
the  settlement  of  Ohio,  and  that  the  name  has  been  an 
honored  one  in  that  new  commonwealth  as  well  as  in  this 
grand  old  State  of  Connecticut. 

The  settlers  who  landed  at  Marietta  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Muskingum  on  that  seventh  day  of  April,  1788.  were  con- 
scientious people  and  brought  with  them  industry  and  knowl- 
edge, religion  and  government.  They  were  the  proper 
pioneers  of  that  great  State.  The  directors  of  the  company 
requested  the  settlers  to  pay  as  early  attention  as  possible  to 
the  education  of  the  youth,  and  among  the  first  enterprises  of 
the  pioneers  was  a  library.  Such  were  the  spirits  that 
founded  Ohio. 

"  Fresh  from  the  Revolution's  fire 

They  came  to  hew  the  Empire's  way 
Through  trackless  wastes,  and  to  inspire 
The  sunlight  of  young  Freedom's  day." 

And  they  founded  a  peerless  State,  after  which  came  four 
others,  all  standing  resplendent  as  the  stars  on  the  blue  field 
of  our  country's  flag — that  grand  old  banner  our  grandsires 
lifted  up  and  our  fathers  bore  through  many  a  battle's 
tempest — what  God  has  woven  in  his  loom  let  no  man  rend 
in  twain. 

These  brave  men  and  women,  still  filled  with  the  courage 
of  '76,  were  equal  to  the  task  before  them.  They  felled  the 


—  IOO — 

trees  of  the  forests  and  built  their  homes.  They  endured 
hardships  that  only  men  and  women  would  be  willing  to 
suffer  for  the  sake  of  conscience,  homes  and  liberty.  Many 
of  them  were  personal  friends  of  Washington,  and  in  a  letter 
written  the  same  year  he  said  of  them,  "  No  colony  in 
America  was  ever  settled  under  such  favorable  auspices  as 
that  which  has  just  been  commenced  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Muskingum.  I  know  many  of  the  settlers  personally,  and 
there  were  never  men  better  calculated  to  promote  the  welfare 
of  such  a  community.  If  I  were  a  young  man  just  beginning 
life,  or  had  a  family  to  make  provision  for,  I  know  of  no 
country  where  I  should  rather  fix  my  habitation." 

The  first  laws  of  the  colony  were  made  by  the  resident 
Directors,  and  were  published  by  being  posted  on  a  beech 
tree.  It  stands  as  a  credit  to  the  good  name  of  the  early 
settlers,  that  during  the  period  from  the  time  of  their  landing 
until  the  arrival  of  Gov.  St.  Clair,  the  first  and  only  Governor 
of  the  Territory  of  the  Northwest,  but  one  dispute  among 
them  is  recorded,  and  that  was  settled  without  the  interven- 
tion of  law.  Afterward  judges  were  appointed  of  good  sense 
and  character,  and  they  composed  the  legislative  council  of 
the  Governor.  Major-Gen.  Samuel  Holden  Parsons,  of  Con- 
necticut, was  the  first  Chief  Justice. 

Eight  years  later,  in  the  interests  of  the  Connecticut  Land 
Company,  a  business  combination  of  hopeful  New  England- 
ers,  who  purchased  from  their  State  land  on  the  south  shore 
of  Lake  Erie,  known  as  New  Connecticut,  or  the  Western 
Reserve,  Moses  Cleveland,  at  the  head  of  a  band  of  pioneers, 
left  their  homes  in  June,  1796,  for  New  Connecticut.  The 
management  of  affairs  was  left  to  Moses  Cleveland,  lawyer, 
law-maker,  soldier,  a  sturdy,  faithful,  well-disposed  New 
Englander,  a  man  of  whom  Hon.  C.  Rice  has  said  :  "  He 
was  of  few  words  and  prompt  action."  His  firmness  and 
honesty  were  the  outgrowth  of  Puritanism,  and  as  rigid  as  it 
was  pure. 

This  band  of  pioneers  for  the  Western  Reserve  experienced 
hardships  by  the  way,  but  they  arrived  safely  at  Buffalo 
Creek  and  landed  at  the  terminus  of  an  Indian  trail.  They 


—  IOI  — 

mounted  the  hill,  and  on  the  22d  day  of  July  the  first  stone 
in  the  foundation  of  the  city  of  Cleveland  was  laid.  From 
modern  Cleveland  to  Moses  Cleveland  seems  a  long  step,  but 
that  builder  of  cities  himself  prophesied  what  has  been  long 
since  fulfilled.  Upon  his  return  from  the  valley  of  Cuyahoga 
in  the  fall  of  1796,  he  said  to  the  grandmother  of  Judge 
Rufus  P.  Spaulding,  "  While  I  was  in  New  Connecticut,  I 
laid  out  a  town  on  the  bank  of  Lake  Erie  which  was  called 
by  my  name,  and  I  believe  the  child  is  now  born  that  may 
live  to  see  a  place  as  large  as  old  Windham." 

The  direct  work  of  Moses  Cleveland,  in  connection  with 
the  founding  of  the  city  of  Cleveland,  may  be  briefly  stated. 
He  was  one  of  the  moving  spirits  in  the  Connecticut  Land 
Company  that  purchased  these  lands  for  settlement.  He 
safely  led  the  first  surveying  expedition  from  Connecticut  to- 
the  Western  Reserve.  He  made  a  compact  with  the  Indians, 
and  with  a  great  deal  of  diplomacy  and  a  small  sum  of  money 
secured  to  the  settlers  of  the  Reserve  a  place  the  value  of 
which  cannot  be  estimated.  He  selected  the  site  of  the  city 
of  Cleveland,  and  superintended  the  laying  out  of  its  main 
points.  He  led  his  expedition  safely  home,  and  resigned  the 
honors  and  authority  of  the  future  to  others.  He  doubtless 
had  a  good  share  of  influence  with  the  directors  of  the  Land 
Company  in  persuading  them  to  continue  the  work  which  he 
had  commenced.  The  early  settlers,  the  men  who  laid  the 
foundations  of  the  present  magnificent  city  of  Cleveland,  with 
the  instinct  of  home-making  and  home-building,  which  is  so 
strong  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  pushed  their  enterprise 
forward  with  true  Yankee  grit,  and  here  in  the  wilds  of  this 
new  country  these  hardy  pioneers  did  not  forget  their  former 
homes  and  the  names  of  the  towns  they  loved  in  the  grand 
old  State  from  whence  they  came,  and  we  have  to-day  in  the 
portion  of  our  State  that  then  comprised  New  Connecticut, 
the  towns  of  Saybrook — namesake  of  this  beautiful  and  his- 
toric town  of  yours ;  New  Lyme,  daughter  of  Old  Lyme^ 
your  near  neighbor ;  Hartford — named  for  the  chief  city 
of  your  State,  and  these  towns,  proud  of  their  origin,  are 


—  IO2 — 

pushing  forward  and  are  among  the  most  enterprising  and 
promising  towns  in  that  section  of  our  State. 

Gideon  G.  Garner,  Postmaster-General  of  the  United 
States,  with  a  little  party  of  friends,  down  by  the  bank  of 
the  lake  in  the  village  of  Cleveland,  in  1805,  uttered  the 
following  words :  "  In  fifty  years  an  extensive  city  will 
occupy  these  grounds  and  vessels  will  sail  directly  into  the 
Atlantic  Ocean."  How  well  this  prophecy  was  fulfilled.  I 
have  but  to  state  that  in  1858  a  vessel  was  sent  from  Cleve- 
land harbor  with  a  store  of  grain  and  lumber.  It  made  its 
way  by  the  Welland  Canal,  the  St.  Lawrence  River,  across  to 
England  and  back  with  a  cargo  of  iron,  salt  and  crockery 
ware.  Seven  years  after  the  founding  of  this  city  of  New 
Connecticut  by  Moses  Cleveland,  Ohio,  the  first  State  formed 
out  of  the  Northwest  Territory,  was  admitted  to  the  Union, 
and  the  act  of  Congress  admitting  her  to  the  Union  was  as 
great  in  its  results  and  abundant  fruition  as  perhaps  any  act 
of  the  American  Congress. 

This  is  a  brief  mention  of  Connecticut's  emigration  to  Ohio. 
The  results  are  too  great  and  far-reaching  to  be  described  or 
even  enumerated  in  the  time  allotted  me ;  but  I  may  speak  of 
a  few  of  them.  First,  it  was  the  founding  of  a  great  free 
State  in  the  very  heart  of  the  Nation,  a  State  of  five  times  the 
area  and  now  five  times  the  population  of  the  Mother  State; 
and  besides  this  nearly  a  million  of  her  children  now  have 
their  homes  in  States  west  of  her  boundaries.  It  gave  to  the 
Nation  a  State  the  patriotism  and  loyalty  of  which  has  been 
equal  to  any  other  in  every  struggle.  One-eighth  of  the 
great  army  that  fought  for  the  preservation  of  the  Union  and 
the  honor  of  the  flag  from  '61  to  '65  was  from  Ohio.  The 
heroic  character  of  her  sons  and  daughters,  signally  shown 
by  the  eminent  leaders  she  has  produced  in  every  department, 
will  remain  an  imperishable  inspiration  ;  and  the  heroic  and 
honorable  character  of  these  sons  and  daughters  came  from 
the  noble  character  of  their  ancestors — the  early  settlers  from 
Connecticut.  Another  result  of  the  emigration  from  Con- 
necticut to  Ohio  was  the  founding  of  a  State  on  the  great 
highway  over  which  the  commerce  and  travel  of  the  nation 


—103— 

must  flow,  giving  her  people  opportunity  to  mingle  for  inter- 
change and  broadening  of  ideas.  Her  soil  of  the  richest,  and 
no  one  industry  predominating  to  give  her  citizens  a  one- 
sided development — agriculture,  manufacture,  mining  and 
commerce  are  so  equally  divided,  that  she  may  be  said  to  be 
the  most  evenly  balanced  State  in  the  Union  ;  and  to  this 
should  be  added,  prominence  in  education.  The  establish- 
ment of  schools  early  engaged  the  attention  of  the  pioneers 
from  Connecticut,  and  by  them  was  laid  the  foundation  of 
that  immense  structure — the  school  system  of  Ohio,  which  is. 
second  to  none  in  our  land  and  in  many  features  leading  all 
others.  There  are  now  about  25,000  teachers  and  700,000 
pupils  engaged  in  the  educational  institutions  of  our  State. 
The  large  number  of  colleges,  cheap  and  accessible  every- 
where, have  given  multitudes  the  prime  requisite  of  the 
higher  education,  which  is  mental  discipline  and  the  use  of 
the  instruments  of  knowledge.  In  instructors  in  learning, 
Ohio  has  produced  a  host,  and  to-day,  in  the  department  of 
religion,  she  shows  an  unsurpassed  spirit  of  Christian  enter- 
prise and  self-sacrifice,  leading  all  the  States  in  the  number  of 
missionaries  to  heathen  lands. 

These  are  results  of  Connecticut  emigration  to  Ohio,  and,  in 
addition,  that  emigration  was  the  establishment  of  the  first 
settlement  in  the  Northwest  Territory,  from  which  in  a  little 
more  than  a  hundred  years  has  grown  five  of  the  grandest 
commonwealths  of  the  nation. 

That  Ohio  is  as  great  as  she  is,  is  because  she  was  born 
great,  and  the  people  of  Connecticut,  of  the  present,  have  a 
right  to  be  proud  of  the  part  their  ancestors  took  in  founding 
the  settlement  of  that  now  magnificent  commonwealth. 

Connecticut,  which  has  been  so  prominent  in  all  great 
affairs  of  state,  has  been  none  the  less  so  in  matters  of  church. 
The  Episcopal  Church,  of  which  I  am  now  a  member  (though 
formerly  a  Congregationalist,  and  probably  should  still  have 
been  except  for  the  influence  of  the  better  part  of  the  family)^ 
looks  back  with  gratitude  and  thankful  heart  to  the  beginning 
of  her  American  Historic  Episcopate  upon  the  soil  of  grand 
old  Connecticut,  where,  after  the  Revolutionary  War,  the 


— IO4 — 

ministers  and  people  of  her  fold  were  discouraged  and  sepa- 
rated by  three  thousand  miles  of  water  from  the  See  City  of 
the  Bishop  of  London.  In  vain  did  she  beg  of  the  English 
fathers  to  give  her  a  bishop  of  her  own,  and  finally,  after  the 
Rev.  Samuel  Seabury  had  been  elected  by  the  church  people 
in  Connecticut  as  their  bishop,  and  had  gone  to  England  for 
consecration  and  been  refused,  he  turned  to  the  Episcopal 
Church  in  Scotland  and  obtained  the  boon  so  earnestly  desired, 
and  on  November  14,  1784,  at  Aberdeen,  Scotland,  by  three 
Scottish  bishops,  the  succession  was  obtained  for  the  long- 
suffering,  patient  and  patriotic  American  Episcopalians,  by  the 
prayers  and  perseverance  of  our  stanch  old  brothers  in  Con- 
necticut ;  and  thus  was  your  grand  old  State  instrumental 
in  founding  permanently  on  the  soil  of  America  this  great 
Protestant  denomination.  Truly  may  it  be  said  of  this  goodly 
commonwealth : 

She  lives  for  every  cause  that  lacks  assistance, 
For  every  wrong  that  needs  resistance, 
For  the  future  in  the  distance, 
And  the  good  that  she  can  do. 

And  now,  Ohio,  first-born  of  the  Sisterhood  of  the  North- 
west, with  her  glorious  history  and  unparalleled  record  of 
great  ones — warrior  and  statesmen — given  the  nation,  comes 
to  greet  you,  and  with  pride  acknowledges  her  parentage,  and 
devoutly  asks  that  blessings  abundant  may  rest  upon  the 
mother  that  gave  her  birth,  and  peace  and  plenty  abide  with 
her  alway. 


—IDS— 

* 
THE  FIRST  CHURCH  OF  OLD   LYME. 

(ORGANIZED  FROM  THIS  CHURCH  IN  1693.) 


BY  REV.  ARTHUR  SHIRLEY,  PASTOR. 


The  church  in  Old  Lyme  joins  heartily  in  the  congratu- 
lations extended  to  the  church  in  Old  Saybrook  on  this 
auspicious  occasion.  We  are  separated  from  you  by  the 
silvery  stream  of  the  Connecticut  River,  but  we  are  joined  to 
you  by  bands  of  steel.  The  founders  of  our  church  pushed 
over  into  the  eastern  wilderness,  but  they  erected  their  meet- 
ing-house on  the  brow  of  a  hill  from  which  they  could  look 
and  listen  and  watch  over  their  brothers  on  this  side  with 
friendly  interest.  And  at  the  present  time,  when,  through  the 
Sabbath  stillness  or  the  quiet  evening  air,  the  church-bell  of 
Saybrook  sends  it  melodious  tones  abroad,  the  people  across 
the  river  often  gather  with  you  in  spirit,  for  the  Sunday 
service  or  the  week-day  conference.  We  went  out  from  you, 
not  because  we  were  not  of  you,  but  simply  as  the  growing 
birdlings  leave  the  nest  when  it  becomes  full  to  overflowing. 

Those  two  forces  which  hold  the  celestial  spheres  in  their 
orbits — the  centrifugal  and  the  centripetal — have  been  ac- 
cepted as  the  governing  principles  of  the  Congregational 
polity — Independence  and  Fellowship — and  they  are  remark- 
ably illustrated  in  our  colonial  history.  It  is  surprising  how 
soon  the  New  England  colonists  felt  crowded.  Hooker  and 
the  church  at  Newtown  petitioned  for  leave  to  remove  to 
Connecticut  in  1634,  on  account  of  want  of  pasturage  for  their 
cattle ;  "  and  it  was  alleged  by  Mr.  Hooker  as  a  fundamental 
error  that  the  towns  were  set  so  near  to  each  other."  It  was 
only  ten  years  after  the  landing  at  Plymouth  Rock  that  the 
Pilgrims  began  to  spread  abroad  from  Burial  Hill  and  Leyden 
Street.  Capt.  Miles  Standish  and  his  lieutenant,  John  Alden, 


— io6 — 

Elder  Brewster  and  his  sons,  and  Winslow  and  his  brothers,, 
crossed  over  the  bay  to  Captain's  Hill  and  built  cottages  in 
Duxbury  and  Marshfield.  On  the  spot  where  John  Alden 
built,  his  children  of  the  eighth  generation  are  living  to-day. 
The  departure  of  these  leading  men  was  naturally  dishearten- 
ing to  their  old  comrade,  Gov.  Bradford,  and  those  who 
stayed  by  him  in  the  old  home ;  they  thought  the  population 
all  too  small  at  best,  and  it  was  enacted  by  the  "  Court  of  the 
People  "  that  those  colonists  who  should  build  houses  outside 
the  town  limits,  for  the  convenience  of  grazing  or  farming, 
should  return  to  town  at  the  beginning  of  winter,  and  should 
abide  there  until  spring ;  also,  that  they  should,  week  by 
week,  come  into  town  to  attend  divine  service  on  the  Lord's 
Day. 

There  is  something  very  pathetic  in  this  effort  of  the  lonely 
Plymouth  remnant  to  hold  on  to  the  fellowship  of  their 
swarming  brethren ;  but  new  communities  must  make  their 
own  laws  and  live  their  own  lives,  and  fellowship  must  result 
not  from  arbitrary  legislation,  but  from  common  sympathies 
and  mutual  helpfulness.  The  military  experience  of  Miles 
Standish,  the  spiritual  wisdom  of  Elder  Brewster,  the  political 
sagacity  of  Winslow,  would  be  at  the  service  of  Gov.  Bradford, 
not  because  Plymouth  so  enacted,  but  because  they  were 
brothers  all,  of  a  common  faith  and  purpose. 

So  with  our  forefathers  at  the  mouth  of  the  Connecticut 
River.  They  had  hardly  settled  down  in  Saybrook  before 
they  felt  the  need  of  more  elbow  room.  Perhaps  this  feeling 
was  intensified  by  the  severe  pinching  which  they  received  in 
1636-7;  during  that  winter  (as  your  historian  related  this 
morning),  the  Pequots  kept  them  practically  besieged  on  the 
Point,  behind  their  palisade  of  twelve  foot  high  tree  trunks. 
Our  fathers  had  come  to  a  large  country,  and  they  had  large 
ideas  on  the  land  question.  It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that 
they  soon  swarmed  across  the  river ;  and  while  Capt.  Mason 
and  Pastor  Fitch  and  other  important  personages  founded  the 
church  and  town  of  Norwich,  the  Griswolds  and  other  families 
founded  the  town  and  church  of  Lyme.  No  doubt  these  people 
over  the  river  often  came  back  at  first  to  Saybrook  to  church — 


for  it  was  more  than  twenty -seven  years  after  they  organized 
the  town  before  they  organized  the  church,  although  Moses 
Noyes  was  their  acting  pastor  throughout  that  period;  and 
an  interesting  token  of  love  for  the  mother  church  is  the  silver 
communion-cup  presented  to  the  Saybrook  church  by  the 
first  Matthew  Griswold,  marked  with  his  name,  and  still,  I 
believe,  preserved. 

So  far  as  I  am  informed,  there  have  always  been  harmonious 
and  friendly  relations  between  the  two  churches.  When  Yale 
College  was  organized,  the  pastor  of  the  Lyme  church,  though 
a  Harvard  graduate,  gave  his  approval  and  assistance  (he  was 
one  of  the  trustees  of  the-  original  Collegiate  School),  and,  of 
the  ten  pastors  which  the  Lyme  church  has  since  had,  eight 
have  been  graduates  of  Yale  College.  (I  hardly  think  the 
mother  church,  herself,  can  have  been  more  faithful  to  this 
collegiate  offspring.)  When  the  Saybrook  Platform  was 
adopted,  the  pastor  of  the  Lyme  church  was  present  as  a 
delegate,  and  his  brother,  James  Noyes,  of  Stonington,  was 
one  of  the  moderators  of  the  Synod.  We  can  hardly  claim 
that  we  are  at  present  giving  conscientious  adherence  to  all 
the  points  of  the  Saybrook  Platform,  but  if  we  have  wandered 
from  it,  it  has  been  in  sisterly  companionship  with  the  elder 
church. 

I  was  pleased  to  note  recently  on  our  church  records,  a 
gratifying  instance  of  fellowship  which  included  the  church  at 
Norwich  as  well  as  the  churches  at  Saybrook  and  Lyme. 
Under  date  of  1814,  October  15,  it  is  recorded  that  Dea.  Robert 
Ely,  of  Saybrook,  and  Sarah  Fanning,  of  Norwich,  were  married 
at  Lyme  by  Rev.  Lathrop  Rockwell.  There  is  still  a  parson- 
age at  Old  Lyme,  where  any  deacon  or  other  good  man  from 
Saybrook,  who  desires  to  strengthen  the  old  ties  by  taking  to- 
himself  a  wife  from  the  good  people  of  Norwich,  will  be 
heartily  welcome,  and  will  be  able  to  have  the  matrimonial 
knot  securely  tied.  I  learn  also  from  our  church  records  that 
there  were  formerly  many  weddings  between  Saybrook  and 
Lyme  parties.  These  cannot  have  become  infrequent  of  late 
years  on  account  of  failure  of  material ;  for  we  have  still  in 
Old  Lyme  a  fair  supply  of  as  lovely  young  ladies  as  can 


— io8— 

anywhere  be  found.  In  the  future,  as  in  the  past,  we  hope  to 
be  bound  together  by  all  the  ties  of  fraternal  fellowship.  (The 
graceful  ornamentation  of  this  church  to-day  is  very  suggest- 
ive of  weddings.) 

We  trust  that  the  Old  Lyme  church  will  not  be  deemed 
unworthy  to  stand  with  you  to-day  in  this  time  of  congratula- 
tions and  rejoicings.  Emulous  of  your  worthy  example,  we 
have  tried  for  more  than  two  hundred  years  to  hold  forth  the 
word  of  life  and  to  adapt  it  to  the  ever-varying  needs  of  the 
community.  At  the  time  of  the  great  awakening  of  1740, 
when  the  Church  of  Christ  in  this  new  land  was  passing 
through  a  critical  period,  when  James  Davenport  made  to 
the  Old  Saybrook  church  the  fierce  visit  so  vividly  described 
in  the  excellent  historical  discourse  of  this  morning,  the  pastor 
of  the  church  in  Lyme  was  Rev.  Jonathan  Parsons,  who  did 
an  important  work  in  the  commonwealth  as  well  as  in  the 
town,  and  whose  remains  now  lie  buried  side  by  side  with 
those  of  his  friend  Whitefield,  in  the  church  at  Newburyport. 

During  the  trying  period  of  the  French  and  Indian  Wars 
and  the  American  Revolution,  while  Mr.  Hart  was  performing 
so  faithful  service  here,  the  church  in  Lyme  was  served  by 
Rev.  Stephen  Johnson,  a  loved  pastor  of  the  church  and  a 
valued  inspirer  and  counselor  of  leaders  in  the  American 
Revolution.  And  when  the  War  of  the  Rebellion  tried  men's 
souls,  the  last  of  the  life-long  pastors  of  the  Lyme  church, 
Rev.  D.  S.  Brainerd,  stood  faithfully  at  his  post  and  uttered 
no  uncertain  sound.  We  think  we  can  modestly,  but  grate- 
fully, say  of  the  Lyme  pastors,  as  your  historian  says  of 
the  Saybrook  pastors,  that  they  have  all  been  men  of  God, 
devoted  to  the  work  of  the  ministry.  I  presume  it  has  always 
been  true,  as  it  certainly  is  true  to  a  very  gratifying  degree 
to-day,  that  the  pastor  of  each  church  is  made  welcome  in  the 
pulpit  of  the  other  church,  and  is  made  to  feel  at  home  among 
the  people.  There  is  an  especially  hearty  and  affectionate 
fellowship  between  the  churches  in  Old  Saybrook  and  Old 
Lyme ;  and  we  gladly  and  gratefully  acknowledge  our  indebt- 
edness to  you  for  help  in  the  day  of  beginnings,  and  for  sweet 
counsel  that  we  have  taken  together  through  the  centuries. 


— 109 — 

One  of  the  striking  features  of  the  church  edifice  in  Old 
Lyme,  is  the  tall  and  graceful  steeple,  which  is  seen  from  so 
many  points,  often  unexpectedly,  as  one  skims  along  the  rail- 
road, or  climbs  the  hills,  or  sails  the  Sound,  lifting  its  white 
finger,  slender,  but  steady,  toward  the  deep  blue  of  the  over- 
arching sky.  It  suggests  the  spire  of  Salisbury  Cathedral, 
that  seems  to  float  like  a  cloud,  as  one  looks  back  to  it  over 
intervening  hills  from  Stonehenge,  eight  miles  away.  That 
steeple  is  a  true  symbol  of  the  great  function  of  the  Christian 
Church — a  function  which  our  churches  have  endeavored 
unitedly  to  fulfill  in  the  two  centuries  that  are  gone,  and 
which  they  will  no  doubt  continue  to  fulfill,  and  help  each 
•other  to  fulfill,  amid  all  the  changes  of  many  centuries  yet  to 
-come — to  point  to  heaven  and  lead  the  way. 


* 

YALE  UNIVERSITY, 

1702. 


TIMOTHY  DWIGHT,  D.  D. ,  PRESIDENT  OF  YALE  UNIVERSITY. 


The  subject  which  has  been  assigned  to  me,  and  on  which 
1  have  been  requested  to  say  a  few  words  in  connection  with 
your  anniversary  services  this  afternoon,  is  "-Yale  University, 
1702."  The  name  of  the  institution,  as  thus  given,  and  the 
•date  that  is  added  to  it,  seem  to  place  the  speaker,  as  if  at  the 
same  moment,  at  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  a  period  of 
nearly  two  centuries,  and  to  suggest,  as  of  necessity  for  the 
matter  of  his  speaking,  either  a  historical  narrative,  or  some- 
thing of  the  nature  of  a  vision  and  a  contrast.  For  a  his- 
torical record  the  limit  of  the  brief  sixth  portion  of  an  hour, 
\vhich  is  all  that  you  can  offer  me,  is  so  insufficient  as  to 
anake  even  the  thought  of  it  impossible.  On  the  other  hand, 


— 110 — 

the  quite  secondary  character  of  the  part  which  the  institu- 
tion, or  myself  as  representing  it,  must  have  on  an  occasions 
like  this,  when  the  deepest  and  all-absorbing  interest  of  every 
mind  is  resting  upon  the  life  and  work  of  this  ancient  church^ 
renders  the  attempt  to  present  such  a  record  equally  inappro- 
priate. 

I  can  only  turn  my  thought  and  yours,  therefore,  to  what  I 
may  call  a  vision  and  contrast,  and  do  even  this  but  for  a  few- 
moments.  As  I  sit,  day  by  day,  in  the  room  assigned  to  me 
on  the  college  grounds  in  New  Haven  for  the  discharge  of 
my  ordinary  duties,  the  eye  of  Abraham  Pierson,  the  first 
Rector  or  President,  seems  always  to  be  looking  in  upon  me. 
Just  outside  of  my  window  at  a  very  little  distance  stands  the 
bronze  statue  which  commemorates  him.  The  face  is  turned. 
towards  the  window,  and  the  worthy  leader  of  the  great  com- 
pany of  these  centuries,  and  saintly  prophet  and  teacher  of 
the  olden  time,  presents  himself  to  my  mind  as  if  he  were 
watching  the  growth  of  the  years  and  the  work  of  the  living 
men.  It  sometimes  becomes  easy  to  believe  that  the  statue 
has  received  into  itself  the  soul  of  him  whom  it  represents^ 
and  that  thus  his  very  presence  is  near  to  us  and  among  us. 

If  the  soul  be  indeed  there,  I  say  to  myself,  what  must  be 
its  thoughts?  The  wonderful  changes  of  these  two  hundred' 
years  must,  it  would  seem,  have  an  impressiveness  for  him 
even  greater  than  they  can  have  for  us ;  for  the  memory  of  the 
past  is  to  him  a  living  and  personal  remembrance  as  of  yester- 
day, and  the  sight  of  to-day  is  as  clear  as  the  reality  of 
present  experience.  I  would  that  I  might  have  such  a  vision 
for  an  hour — a  vision  thus  gathering  into  itself  the  effort  and; 
success,  the  struggle  and  joy  of  all  the  workers,  and  thus 
bringing  together  the  first  things  and  the  last  things  in  the 
long  historic  development. 

The  wonderful  changes  suggest  themselves  in  many  lines- 
of  thought.  But  I  can  only  offer  a  word  which  may  connect 
itself  with  one  of  them  and  set  you  thinking  for  a  few 
moments  in  movement  along  that  one.  In  1702,  the  college 
community  consisted  for  an  entire  half  year  of  the  Rector  and: 
a  single  student.  That  student  was  Jacob  Heminway,  whc»- 


— Ill — 

•<was  graduated  in  1704,  and  who  afterwards  became  the 
honored  pastor  of  the  church  in  East  Haven,  where  he  re- 
mained for  forty-three  years  until  his  death,  in  1754.  I  have 
occasional!}?-  tried  to  picture  to  myself  the  life  of  the  President 
and  the  student  as  they  passed  those  first  six  months  together. 
They  must  have  had  much  kindly  and  sweet  communion  as 
they  met  in  their  relation  as  teacher  and  pupil,  and  as  per- 
chance they  told  each  other  of  their  thinking  and  their  hoping 
when  they  had  friendly  converse  in  their  leisure  hours.  If 
the  good  President  was  a  man  after  the  likeness  of  his  statue, 
it  must  have  been  a  pleasant  thing  to  talk  with  him.  The 
inspiration  of  his  presence  must  have  been,  in  itself,  an  edu- 
cating influence.  The  youthful  student  also  had,  no  doubt, 
his  part  in  the  blessing  of  the  fellowship,  and  did  his  work  in 
a  manly  way  for  the  keeping  of  somewhat  of  the  youthful 
spirit  in  his  older  friend.  Those  few  months,  we  may  well 
Jbelieve,  were  not  without  their  results  of  good  in  the  life  of 
the  two  men.  The  Collegiate  School  had  a  genuine  scholarly 
(beginning  in  the  meeting  of  their  personalities. 

We  have  grown,  in  two  hundred  years  since  then,  out  of 
and  far  beyond  the  Collegiate  School,  and  into  a  great 
-University,  which  for  our  country  has  somewhat  of  the  vener- 
able character  of  age.  The  President  of  the  institution  has 
now  about  him  and  associated  with  him  one  hundred  pro- 
fessors and  permanent  instructors,  and  more  than  one  hundred 
other  teachers  in  all  departments  of  learning  and  science. 
"The  one  student  has  become  in  the  progress  of  time — if  we 
may  use  the  Old  Testament  expression — a  troop  or  a  multi- 
tude. The  personality  of  Jacob  Heminway,  as  we  may  say, 
has  multiplied  itself  into  the  twenty-four  hundred  and  fifteen 
young  men  who  make  up  the  University  community  in  this 
year,  1896.  The  brightest  and  most  widely-unfolding  vision 
-of  the  future  which  those  two  scholars,  the  younger  and  the 
older,  saw  revealed  before  them  in  their  most  joyful  hours  of 
anticipation,  could  not,  in  1702,  bring  the  reality  to  their 
>minds.  They  could  only  speak  of  possibility  and  promise, 
^md  encourage  their  hearts  as  they  spoke.  The  better  things 
provided  of  God  for  us  they  could  not  fully  foresee.  The 


— 112 — 

accomplishment  of  the  promise  they  were  not  able  to  receive^ 
But  may  not  the  soul  of  the  old  Rector,  I  say  to  myself  in  my 
dream  or  vision  of  him — as  it  enters  the  statue  and  looks- 
through  its  eyes — see  the  whole  realization  to-day  and  find* 
itself  satisfied  ? 

It  is  but  a  dreaming  thought  of  the  observer  who  stands 
before  the  bronze  memorial,  you  may  say.  Be  it  so,  it  is  a 
pleasant  thought;  and  somewhere  in  the  unseen  sphere,, 
though  not  in  the  seen,  the  first  teacher  and  his  first  pupil 
may,  indeed,  have  the  sight  of  what  we  behold,  and  may 
know  the  blessing  which  has  come  to  thousands  of  educated; 
men  from  the  school  of  the  early  days  within  whose  doors- 
they  taught  and  learned  the  lesson  of  life. 

The  good  President  finished  his  work  and  passed  to  his- 
reward  only  five  years  after  that  year,  1702.  He  saw  but  the 
first  beginnings  and  the  time  of  smallest  results.  But  how 
calmly  he  seems  to  look  forth  now  upon  the  scene  of  to-day ,_ 
as  if  this  were  what  was  in  his  prayer  and  his  hope !  Jacob- 
Heminway,  on  the  other  hand,  lived  for  more  than  half  & 
century  after  that  season  when  he  was  the  only  student  of  the 
new  Collegiate  School,  and  he  may  well  have  seen,  in  his 
latest  year,  the  rising  walls  of  what  is  now  our  oldest  college 
building.  This  building  thus  seems  to  unite  us  with  the 
earliest  days,  in  some  real  sense,  through  him,  although  in* 
itself  it  belongs  to  the  second  half  of  the  first  century  of  the- 
college  history  and  was  antedated,  by  many  years,  by  the 
first  college  building  erected  in  New  Haven  which  had  already- 
been  removed. 

The  uniting  with  the  earliest  days,  thus  mentioned,  suggests 
the  thought  of  the  continuity  of  influence ;  and  in  my  vision,, 
if  I  may  call  it  so,  I  cannot  help  picturing  before  my  mind 
the  old  life  of  Rector  Pierson  and  Jacob  Heminway  as  pro- 
longing and  perpetuating  itself  in  all  the  teachers  and  students 
who  have  followed  them.  The  happy  spirit  of  brotherhood1 
which  so  strikingly  and  even  proverbially  has  characterized 
the  membership  of  our  University ;  the  friendly  sentiment 
which  instructors  have  cherished  towards  pupils,  and  pupils 
towards  instructors ;  the  free  interchange  of  thought  on  all 


questions  of  highest  interest,  and  the  honest  search  for  truth, 
with  no  fears  of  its  safety  and  triumph  ;  these  things  and 
others  which  mark  the  mind  and  spirit  of  our  University  are 
surely  not  the  growth  of  this  year  or  this  decade  of  years. 
They  have  belonged  to  the  institution  as  long  as  the  oldest  of 
us  can  remember,  and  they  reach,  in  the  fullness  of  their 
reality,  far  beyond  our  memory.  Was  not  the  beginning  of 
them  contemporaneous  with  the  earliest  days  of  the  life  of  the 
Collegiate  School?  Was  not  the  seed  that  was  planted  a  seed 
which  carried  within  itself  the  forces  for  all  the  growth  and 
the  fruitage  ?  And  so  I  ask  myself  whether  the  origin  of  all 
may  not  have  been  in  those  friendly  meetings  and  talkings 
of  the  President  and  his  one  student  in  1702,  when  they 
spoke  with  one  another  so  freely  and  so  lovingly  about  learn- 
ing and  truth  and  religion  and  man  and  God — both  of  them 
believing  in  the  light  and  trustful  for  the  future.  No  wonder 
that  the  eye  looks  forth  from  the  bronzed  memorial  of  the 
President  so  calmly  and  benignantly,  and  that  the  old  build- 
ing has  ever  centered  in  itself,  for  the  student  life  within  it, 
its  measure  of  the  influences  which  have  come  from  the  past, 
and  have  wrought  in  the  lives  of  successive  generations  for 
the  growth  of  true  manhood. 

Those  old  meetings  of  the  Rector  and  the  young  man,  which 
were  the  first  things  in  the  college  history  if  we  think  of  the 
true  academic  life,  took  place  in  the  old  town  of  Killingworth. 
The  College  itself,  however,  in  its  legal  and  authorized  exist- 
ence as  we  may  say,  was  not  there.  It  was  in  this  town,  the 
anniversary  of  whose  ancient  church  is  celebrated  to-day. 

The  two  towns  were  farther  apart  in  those  days  than  they 
are  in  this  era  of  steam  and  electricity,  but  they  were  even 
then  only  separated  by  a  moderate  distance.  The  journey 
from  the  one  to  the  other  was  a  comparatively  easy  one.  If 
it  was  longer  in  time  as  contrasted  with  the  present  possibil- 
ities, there  was  opportunity  for  pleasant  meditation  for  the 
solitary  traveler  as  he  slowly  moved  along  his  way,  or  for 
friendly  and  intelligent  talk  on  interesting  themes  for  the  two 
or  three  who  might  perchance  have  the  fortune  to  go  in 
company.  To  these  men  of  whom  we  have  spoken  the 


—114— 

country  road  must  have  been  familiar,  and  as  they  went  from 
the  pastor  and  rector's  home  to  this  home  appointed  for  the 
College,  the  plans  and  thoughts  concerning  its  welfare  must 
have  been  prominent  in  their  minds. 

The  worthy  President  certainly  came  hither  for  the  great 
season  and  service  of  the  year  as  we  should  now  call 
it — the  annual  Commencement;  and  I  suppose  that  Jacob 
Heminway,  who  had  drawn  to  himself,  if  I  may  so  express  it. 
two  worthy  classmates  before  the  closing  of  his  first  college 
year,  received  his  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts  here.  We  may 
think  of  the  four  as  they  went  to  this  for  them  most  interest- 
ing ceremony — the  President  no  doubt  rejoicing  in  his  class  of 
three,  as  compared  with  only  one  of  the  previous  year,  which 
one  had  passed  through  most  of  his  course  at  Harvard  and 
had  come  to  Killingworth  at  the  end  of  Heminway's  solitary 
residence  there  as  a  student ;  and  the  three  young  men,  whose 
graduation  was  to  be  for  them  the  same  happy  entrance  upon 
manly  life  which  graduation  has  been  for  all  their  successors 
to  this  day  and  will  be,  doubtless,  ever  in  the  future,  rejoicing 
in  the  outlook  before  them.  What  inspiring  words  they  must 
have  said  to  one  another !  What  a  kindly  benediction  the 
good  President  must  have  given  to  each  ! 

I  cannot  but  think  also  of  the  little  company  of  the  village 
residents  who  may  have  assembled  to  see  the  parting  of  the 
teacher  and  the  students,  and  to  rejoice  with  them  both  that 
the  College,  towards  which  so  many  desires  had  turned,  and 
for  which  so  many  prayers  had  been  offered,  was  now  proving 
itself  to  be  a  reality,  and  to  have  a  promise  of  the  coming 
time.  We  of  the  later  age  may  not  fitly  forget  the  old  village, 
or  its  early  Commencement  days,  or  the  years  when  the 
college  life  was  bound  to  it  or  lived  within  it.  The  first 
results  and  the  first  influences  belonged  to  those  days  and  to 
this  pleasant  region,  and  the  end,  let  us  remember,  comes  not 
without  the  beginning. 

The  changes  of  history — how  great  they  have  been  here 
and  everywhere — in  our  old  Collegiate  School,  in  New  Eng- 
land, and  in  the  world,  since  1702,  and  even  yet  more  since 
1646!  You  have  heard  from  a  venerated  friend,  whom  you 


and  I  alike  honor  for  his  useful  and  honorable  life,  of  these 
changes  as  illustrated  in  the  history  of  this  Church  of  Christ, 
now  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  old.  You  have  received 
salutations  from  others  among  the  ancient  churches  of  the 
surrounding  country,  and  have  had  anew,  as  it  were,  some 
part  of  their  record  in  the  suggestions  brought  to  you  by  their 
messengers.  It  has  fallen  to  me,  by  your  kindly  invitation, 
to  bring  you  a  greeting  from  the  old  Collegiate  School — now 
become  a  University — which  was  immediately  related  to  your 
village  in  the  early  time,  but  was  permanently  established  in 
New  Haven  in  1716.  With  my  greeting — which,  for  myself 
and  the  University,  is  a  hearty  one,  as  I  present  it  to  you — 
I  have  tried  to  give  you  a  few  thoughts  in  a  kind  of  vision. 
I  could  wish  that  I  might  have  been  able,  with  something  of 
the  power  of  the  artist,  to  picture  before  you  all  that  the  vision 
carries  in  itself  for  my  own  thought.  But  if  I  have  succeeded 
n  bringing  pleasantly  before  your  minds,  for  the  few  moments 
allowed  me,  the  old  Rector  and  his  student  in  the  days  when 
they  alone  were  what  we  now  call  Yale  University,  and  have 
suggested  to  you  somewhat  of  my  dream,  if  I  may  call  it 
such,  of  their  life  together,  as  having  in  itself  the  source  and 
force  of  the  life  of  the  great  brotherhood  that  has  followed,  I 
have  done  all  that  I  hoped  to  do — and  so,  I  wish  your 
Church  all  prosperity  in  the  coming  century. 


—  n6— 


THE  CHURCH   IN    CENTERBROOK, 

(ORGANIZED  FROM  THIS  CHURCH  IN  1725.) 
BY    DEA.    EDGAR  W.    GRISWOUX 


It  is  not  always  in  good  taste  to  boast  of  one's  descent  from' 
an  illustrious  ancestry.  The  world  at  large  does  not  set  a 
very  high  estimate  upon  such  a  supposed  honor,  preferring  to 
take  men  at  their  present  worth. 

But  I  think  we  may  be  pardoned  if,  to-day,  the  third 
daughter  of  this  old  Mother  Church  proudly  boasts  of  her 
relationship  and  of  her  descent  from  the  same  heroic  and 
godly  men  who  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  founded  the 
institution  the  birthday  of  which  we  now  commemorate. 

The  withdrawal  of  the  several  churches  which  have  from 
time  to  time  gone  from  this  mother  of  churches,  as  well  as 
from  this  daughter  of  hers,,  has,  not  inaptly,  been  compared  to 
the  swarming  of  bees  from  the  parent  hive.  Whatever  analo- 
gies might  be  traced  under  this  figure  of  speech,  I  propose 
to  speak  of  only  one. 

Bee-keepers  know  that  however  populous  the  colony  or 
propitious  the  season  in  other  respects,  bees  do  not  swarm, 
abandoning  the  wealth  of  the  stores  in  the  parent  hive,  except 
when  the  honey-yielding  flowers  are  abundant,  so  that  they 
may  be  sure  that  they  can  maintain  themselves  and  grow 
unto  a  strong  and  prosperous  colony. 

So  we  can  imagine  that  when  the  dwellers  of  Pautapaug,  mi 
the  north  part  of  the  parish  of  Saybrook,  being  moved  by  in- 
pulses  somewhat  analagous  to  the  swarming  instinct,  were 
confronted  with  the  question,  "  Can  we  sustain  ourselves  ?'" 
they  met  the  question  with  many  an  animated  discussion  in 


—H7— 

their  places  of  social  gathering — some  perhaps  with  doubt  and 
misgivings — with  a  reliance  upon  the  God  who  had  sustained 
their  fathers,  and  with  a  confidence  born  of  hopeful  and 
enthusiastic  natures,  which  finally  prevailed ;  and  the  step 
was  taken. 

May  10,  1722,  the  Colonial  Assembly,  then  sitting  in 
Hartford,  granted  to  them  the  "  liberty  or  privilege  of  being  a 
separate  parish  with  all  the  rights  and  privileges  enjoyed  by 
other  parishes."  Perhaps  the  most  important  of  these  privi- 
leges was  the  right  to  tax  all  the  taxable  property  of  the 
parish,  to  build  a  meeting-house,  and  to  meet  the  expense  of 
maintaining  the  public  worship  of  God. 

The  new  parish  organized  themselves  into  a  society  in  the 
September  following.  The  taxable  estate  of  the  parish 
probably  did  not  exceed  $20,000.  Heavy  taxes  were 
necessary  and  proved  burdensome  and  difficult  to  collect. 
A  meeting-house  was  commenced  in  1724,  but  not  finished 
until  1730. 

The  Court-grant,  creating  the  parish,  also  provided  that  if 
the  inhabitants  of  the  north  part  of  the  parish  called  Pate- 
quonck  (now  Chester)  should  be  allowed  by  the  Assembly  to 
become  a  separate  parish,  then  the  second  parish  of  Say- 
brook  should  pay  back  to  Patequonck  parish  all  the  charges 
which  had  been  paid  by  them  to  help  build  the  meeting- 
house, and  minister's  house,  in  said  parish.  A  movement 
was  commenced  by  Patequonck  to  withdraw  in  1730,  but 
successfully  opposed  until  1740,  when  the  General  Assem- 
bly granted  their  petition.  Of  course  their  withdrawal 
weakened  the  old  parish  numerically  and  financially,  and  for 
several  subsequent  years  they  seemed  to  have  consider- 
able difficulty  in  meeting  the  various  expenses  of  the 
parish.  The  minister's  salary  was  sometimes  two  or  three 
years  in  arrears.  In  1753  an  unhappy  controversy  arose 
between  the  parish  and  the  minister  on  account  of  the  inade- 
quacy of  his  salary,  caused  by  the  depreciation  of  the 
Colonial  currency,  consisting  mostly  of  "  public  bills  of 
credit  old  tenor,"  so-called.  They  were  cited  to  appear 
before  the  General  Assembly  in  New  Haven,  and  were  en- 


— u8— 

joined  by  that  body  to  pay  up  all  arrears  and  to  pay  in  future 
.£360  annually  in  the  above  currency. 

They  do  not  seem  to  have  been  able,  or  they  were  unwilling 
to  do  it,  and  the  minister  finally  commenced  suit  against  them. 
His  death  occurred  soon  after ;  the  matter  was  settled  by 
arbitration  with  his  widow.  This  seems  to  have  been  a 
period  of  discouragement,  as  in  1756,  at  a  special  meeting 
of  the  parish,  a  committee  was  appointed  to  confer  with  a 
committee  to  be  appointed  by  Chester,  with  reference  to  con- 
solidating the  two  parishes.  The  same  matter  came  up  in 
1757;  but  there  is  no  record  of  a  report  of  the  committee. 

In  this  year  (1757)  a  committee  was  appointed  to  "see 
if  the  meeting-house  was  worth  repairing,"  and  extensive 
repairs  were  made.  The  house  was  used  until  1792,  when 
the  present  building  was  presented  to  the  society,  having 
been  built  by  a  popular  subscription  by  the  inhabitants  of  the 
parish.  In  1790  the  Episcopalians  organized  a  society,  draw- 
ing largely  from  our  membership  ;  and  in  1805  also  a 
Baptist  society  was  organized. 

Returning  now  more  particularly  to  the  early  history  of  the 
church  ;  religious  services  were  held  in  private  houses  from  the 
first,  but  it  does  not  appear  that  a  church  was  organized  until 
the  first  pastor,  Rev.  Abraham  Nott,  was  ordained  in  1725. 
Mr.  Nott  was  a  graduate  of  Yale  College  in  1720,  and  this 
was  his  first  and  only  settlement.  It  lasted  thirty-one  years. 
His  preaching  and  pastoral  work  appear  to  have  been  very 
acceptable  to  the  parish.  Notwithstanding  the  controversy 
alluded  to  between  him  and  the  society,  there  is  nothing  in 
the  records  to  show  that  there  was  any  disaffection  in  regard 
to  his  ministry.  No  records  of  the  church  during  his  minis- 
try are  in  existence,  having  been  burned,  so  that  the  member- 
ship of  the  church  at  its  organization  is  not  known. 

Mr.  Nott  died  in  1756,  and  was  succeeded  in  1758  by  the 
Rev.  Stephen  Holmes,  also  a  graduate  of  Yale,  class  of  1752. 
His  pastorate  lasted  fifteen  years.  The  records  kept  by  him 
were  very  meager,  and  do  not  give  the  church  membership  at 
any  time.  In  addition  to  his  ministerial  labor,  he  also  acted 
-as  a  physician  for  his  people.  He  died  in  1773.  The  Rev. 


Benjamin  Dunning  was  installed  in  1775.  He  records  for  the 
first  time  the  membership  of  the  church,  which  he  found 
was  sixty-five  in  number  at  the  beginning  of  his  minis- 
try, and  fourteen  were  received  during  its  continuance  for  a 
period  of  ten  years.  He  died  in  1785,  and  the  next  year  the 
Rev.  Richard  Ely,  a  native  of  Lyme,  was  installed.  He  was 
a  graduate  of  Yale  in  1754,  and  came  to  our  church  from 
North  Bristol  (now  North  Madison),  where  he  had  been 
settled  for  twenty-eight  years.  During  his  ministry  here,  one 
hundred  and  four  were  added  to  the  church  upon  profession. 
On  account  of  his  age,  the  Rev.  Aaron  Hovey  was  ordained 
colleague  pastor  with  him  in  1804,  and  assumed  the  full 
duties  of  the  office  almost  immediately.  Mr.  Ely  resigned 
the  next  year  and  removed  to  Chester,  where  he  died  in  1814. 
Mr.  Hovey  was  a  graduate  of  Dartmouth.  His  settlement 
with  this  church  was  the  only  one  he  ever  made,  and  it 
lasted  for  thirty-nine  years.  He  was  a  minister  of  more  than 
ordinary  ability,  and  during  his  ministry  several  extensive 
revivals  of  religion  occurred,  notably  in  1821  and  1827,  when 
ninety  and  seventy-one  respectively  were  added  to  the  church 
upon  profession  of  their  faith.  In  all  three  hundred  and 
seventy  were  received  into  the  church  by  him  as  the  fruits  of 
his  ministry. 

At  the  time  of  his  ordination,  there  were  one  hundred  and 
seven  members  in  the  church.  At  his  death  there  were  two 
hundred  members,  notwithstanding  the  many  withdrawals  of 
members  to  unite  with  other  denominations,  and  the  with- 
drawal of  over  forty  in  1834  to  form  our  sister  church  in 
Deep  River.  Mr.  Hovey  died  in  1843. 

Of  the  ministers  and  pastors  that  have  held  the  office  since 
then,  time  will  not  allow  me  to  speak.  In  1852,  sixty -two 
members  withdrew  to  form  the  sister  church  at  Essex,  thus 
making  four  swarms  from  this  old  hive. 

While  searching  the  records  of  the  one  hundred  and 
seventy-one  years  of  the  existence  of  this  church,  I  seem  to 
have  seen  the  generations  of  devout  men  and  women  who 
have  come  upon  the  stage  of  its  life,  acting  their  part,  serving 
their  day  and  generation,  and  passing  away.  Pastors  have 


— 120 — 

come  and  gone,  but  the  Church  abides,  and  will  abide,  until 
its  mission  is  accomplished.  And  that  mission,  I  believe,  is 
not  merely  the  saving  of  a  few  souls  of  each  generation. 
Important  as  that  is,  it  is  of  itself  only  incidental.  Its  real 
mission  is,  to  be  the  instrument  of  the  ultimate  realization  of 
the  Divine  ideal  of  a  perfected  humanity,  sung  of  by  the 
poets  of  all  ages  as  "  The  Golden  Age,"  but  called  by  our 
Savior  "  The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  "  upon  the  earth. 


THE    FIRST    CHURCH,    WESTBROOK. 

(ORGANIZED  FROM  THIS  CHURCH  IN  1726.) 


BY  REV.  GURDON  F.  BAILEY,  PASTOR. 


NOTE. — The  writer  of  this  paper  would  acknowledge  indebtedness  to  Mrs.  C. 
•  C.  Champlin  for  assistance  in  securing  materials. 

The  youngest  child,  who  has  just  past  her  one  hundred  and 
seventieth  birthday,  brings  greetings  to  her  honored  mother. 
Westbrook,  formerly  called  West  Saybrook  and  originally 
known  as  Pochaug,  was  once  the  south-western  portion 
of  the  town  of  Saybrook.  As  early  as  1664,  some  of  the  un- 
easy ones  (and  as  we  like  to  think  some  of  the  enterprising 
citizens  of  the  town)  pushed  westward  and  inhabited  that 
portion  now  called  Westbrook.  Their  church  home  was 
here  at  Saybrook,  and  for  more  than  sixty  years,  through  the 
heat  of  summer  and  the  snow  of  winter,  with  foot-stove  and 
Bible,  they  rode  from  four  to  ten  miles  to  worship  God,  and 
after  two  sermons,  with  lunch  intervening,  retraced  the  same 
distance.  The  families  there  increased  in  size  and  in  number, 
until,  in  1724,  there  were  thirty -eight  families  and  a  popula- 
tion of  about  two  hundred  and  twenty-five  souls.  Annoyed 
by  the  inconvenience,  and  wearied  with  the  labor  incurred  by 
the  long  distance  from  the  place  of  worship,  the  inhabitants 


—  121  — 

concluded  to  separate  from  the  mother  church,  and  establish 
a  place  of  worship  in  their  own  midst.  Accordingly,  they 
requested  a  public  meeting  of  the  people  in  the  eastern  and 
western  sections  to  consider  the  matter  The  following  was 
the  action  taken  at  that  meeting  : 


"  SAYBROOK,  THE  13™  OF  APRIL,  1724. 

"  Whereas,  the  western  part  of  this  society  have  desired  a  meeting  of  the  whole 
society  to  consider  their  proposal  relating  to  their  applying  themselves  to  the  Gen- 
eral Court  of  this  Government  for  the  privileges  of  a  distinct  society  ;  it  is  agreed 
and  voted  by  this  society  that  the  western  part  of  this  society  (with  liberty  of 
the  General  Court)  may,  without  opposition  from  us,  be  formed  into  a  distinct 
society  ;  provided  they  be  obliged  by  the  act  of  the  General  Assembly  to  pay 
their  portion  of  charges  with  us  in  maintaining  the  minister  in  this  society  that 
now  is,  during  the  time  they  are  destitute  of  a  minister  among  themselves."  *  * 

"  The  above  was  agreed  to  by  the  eastern  and  western 
inhabitants  without  a  dissenting  voice."  The  next  step 
towards  independence  was  to  obtain  permission  from  the 
General  Court  to  become  a  distinct  society.  Just  thirty  days 
after  the  Saybrook  meeting,  a  petition  was  presented  in  the 
General  Assembly  at  Hartford.  The  substance  of  that  peti- 
tion is  as  follows  : 

'"  To  the  Honorable  General  Assembly  now  sitting  at  Hartford,  in  His  Majesty's 
Colony  of  Connecticut  in  New  England,  on  the  1  3th  day  of  May,  in  the 
tenth  year  of  the  reign  of  our  Sovereign  Lord,  George  of  Great  Britain,  King  ; 
Annoque  Domini  1724  —  Greeting: 

"  The  memorial  of  the  western  inhabitants  of  the  South  Society  in  Say- 
!brook  humbly  showeth  (viz.),  that  whereas  we,  having  for  a  long  time 
laboured  under  very  great  and  uncommon  difficulties  and  hardships  with 
respect  to  our  attending  upon  the  publick  worship  of  God  hy  reason  of 
our  great  distance  from  the  place  thereof,  and  having  made  it  appear  to 
the  satisfaction  of  our  brethren  and  neighbours  of  the  eastern  part  of  said 
society,"  *  *  *  *  *  "do  humbly  request  the  Honorable  Assembly 
to  confer  upon  and  establish  to  us  the  powers  and  privileges  common  to  a 
distinct  society."  Be  assured  that  "  we  do  not  expect  nor  desire  ever  to  be 
freed  from  doing  duty  for  the  maintaining  and  promoting  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Christ  and  the  interests  of  religion  in  the  world."  "  Gentlemen,  may  this 
petition  find  so  much  acceptance  with  you  as  not  only  to  be  read  but  also  con- 
sidered and  granted.  And  the  authors  shall  count  it  a  favour  from  yourselves 
and  a  mercy  from  the  Lord." 

"  At  a  meeting  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  South  Society  in  Saybrook,  May  13, 
1724,"  and  signed  by  Samuel  Chapman,  James  Post  and  William  Stannard, 
•Committee. 


— 122 — 

The  petition  was  granted  by  the  General  Assembly  on  the 
following  day,  and  two  weeks  later,  May  28,  1724,  the  first 
Ecclesiastical  Society  of  West  Saybrook  was  formed,  with 
Capt.  Samuel  Chapman  moderator.  The  taxable  property  in 
the  society  at  that  time  amounted  to  .£2,384  43.  The 
brethren  proceeded  at  once  to  business.  A  committee  was 
appointed  to  secure  a  minister.  By  August  the  committee 
succeeded  in  obtaining  the  service  of  Rev.  William  Worthing- 
ton  at  "  ,£50  per  year  and  the  society  find  him  his  wood."  In 
December  they  voted  to  build  a  house  for  the  minister,  "  he 
glassing  the  house  and  finding  the  nails." 

The  following  spring  they  levied  a  tax  upon  all  property- 
owners  to  defray  the  expenses  of  the  society.  The  most 
serious  question  at  issue  seemed  to  be  one  of  finance.  Beside 
current  expenses  and  building  a  parsonage,  they  very  much 
needed  a  house  of  worship.  Help  was  sought  from  the 
General  Court.  In  a  very  elaborate  petition  they  asked  the 
Court  to  exempt  them  from  paying  colony  tax  for  three  or 
four  years.  The  request  was  denied  by  both  houses.  In 
October  of  the  same  year  they  renewed  the  appeal  and  again 
were  denied.  A  year  later  one  more  petition  was  sent  which 
met  the  fate  of  its  predecessors.  In  the  mean  time  the  people 
were  not  idle. 

In  October,  1725,  the  General  Court  gave  them  permission 
to  form  a  church  and  to  settle  an  orthodox  minister,  with  the 
consent  of  the  neighboring  churches.  June  29,  1726,  the 
church  was  organized  with  six  men  and  eight  women  ;  and 
from  that  day  on,  Ecclesiastical  Society  and  Church  have 
labored  together  as  husband  and  wife.  The  problem  of 
erecting  a  house  of  worship  engaged  the  attention  of  the 
Ecclesiastical  Society  early  in  1726.  In  January  of  that  year 
they  voted  "  to  proceed  to  the  building  of  a  meeting-house 
for  God's  publick  worship,"  the  dimensions  to  be  40  feet  long,. 
32  feet  wide  and  18  feet  posts.  The  building  of  the  house 
was  done  on  the  installment  plan,  and  required  no  end  of 
committees. 

On  December  25,  1727,  a  committee  was  chosen  to  "secure 
sleepers  and  underpinning."  The  following  May,  power  was 


—  123— 

given  this  committee  "  to  fix  down  the  sleepers."  At  this 
meeting  another  committee  was  chosen  for  procuring  glass 
and  lead.  In  August  of  that  year  it  was  thought  necessary, 
for  a  more  comfortable  attendance  on  divine  service,  that  the 
house  be  ceiled  up  to  the  first  tier  of  windows,  and  a  commit- 
tee was  chosen  to  that  end.  Others  were  delegated  to  hang 
the  doors.  The  following  February  they  arranged  for  the 
plastering.  One  year  later  (1730)  the  pulpit  and  lower  seats 
were  built.  After  another  year  had  passed,  the  building  of 
the  pulpit  stairs  was  left  with  some  "  meet  and  suitable 
persons." 

Two  years  more  and  a  cushion  was  provided  for  the  pulpit. 
June,  1/33,  they  voted  to  "finish  up  the  plastering,  make 
wooden  steps  to  the  doors  and  procure  suitable  tackling  for 
the  doors."  Five  years  later  they  voted  to  finish  the  gal- 
leries. The  work  on  the  meeting-house  rested  here  from 
1738  to  1763,  when  they  voted  to  "cover  the  south  side  and 
the  two  ends  with  sawed  white  oak  clapboards  and  glass  it 
with  sash  glass,  to  make  window  frames  of  white  oak  and  sash 
of  white  pine  " ;  and  "  to  paint  the  clapboards  sky  colour,  and 
the  doors  and  sash  white." 

In  1794  they  replaced  the  square  seats  with  pews.  In 
1795,  sixty-eight  years  after  the  building  was  raised,  a  steeple 
was  built  on  the  west  end.  Soon  after,  a  bell  and  a  clock, 
and  even  a  spire,  were  added  ;  and  by  this  time  repairs  were 
needed  on  the  part  first  built.  The  construction  of  this  first 
meeting-house  shows  the  courage  and  sacrifice  of  those  early 
inhabitants.  This  house  stood  until  1828,  when  it  was  taken 
down  and  a  second  built  on  the  same  site.  In  1860  the 
second  house  was  removed  to  give  place  to  a  third.  This 
later  one  underwent  some  changes,  and  had,  but  a  few 
months,  been  refurnished  when  it  took  fire  on  Christmas 
night  1892,  and  burned  to  the  ground.  The  fourth  and 
present  church  building,  costing  $18,000,  was  dedicated  May 
9,  1894.  The  houses  have  all  stood  on  the  same  site. 

The  patience  and  discipline  required  for  the  erection  of  the 
first  church  building  was  perhaps  necessary  as  an  example 
and  encouragement  to  those  who  came  afterwards,  inasmuch. 


—  124— 

as  a  new  church  edifice  seemed  to  be  required  with  each 
succeeding  generation.  The  church  has  been  served  by  fifteen 
regularly  employed  servants  of  God.  Rev.  William  Worthing- 
ton,  a  native  of  Colchester,  a  graduate  of  Yale,  class  of  1716, 
and  afterward  grandfather  of  John  Cotton  Smith,  Governor  of 
Connecticut,  was  the  first  minister.  He  was  installed  pastor 
June  29,  1726,  the  day  the  church  was  organized.  He 
labored  faithfully  for  thirty-two  years,  and  was  laid  at  rest  in 
the  old  burying  lot  west  of  the  church.  His  successor  was 
Rev.  John  Devotion,  a  native  of  Connecticut,  and  graduate  of 
Yale  in  the  class  of  1754,  whose  pastorate  covered  a  period  of 
forty-five  years. 

The  church  was  organized  with  fourteen  members — six 
men  and  eight  women.  Their  names  are  as  follows :  Samuel 
Chapman,  Abraham  Post,  James  Post,  Jared  Spencer,  Thomas 
Spencer,  John  Post,  Margaret  Chapman,  Lydia  Grenil,  Sarah 
Spencer,  Elizabeth  Spencer,  Mary  Lay,  Mary  Denison,  Sarah 
Brooker,  Mary  Waterhouse. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  trace  the  current  of  English  blood  in 
these  original  members.  Samuel  Chapman  was  the  grandson 
of  Robert  Chapman,  the  settler,  and  son  of  Robert  Chapman, 
Jr.,  one  of  the  delegates  to  the  assembly  which  draughted  the 
Saybrook  Platform.  Four  of  his  descendants  have  been  suc- 
cessively deacons  in  the  church. 

Abraham  Post  was  grandson  of  Stephen  Post,  the  settler. 
He  with  his  brother  James  and  son  John  were  three  of  the 
original  members. 

Lydia  Grenil,  wife  of  Daniel  Grenil,  was  the  daughter  of 
William  Peabody  and  Betty  Alden,  and  granddaughter  of 
John  Alden  and  Priscilla,  who  sailed  in  the  Mayflower.  There 
are  to-day  in  the  church  direct  descendants  from  John  Alden 
in  the  tenth  and  eleventh  generations. 

About  fifteen  hundred  people  have  been  enrolled  in  the 
membership  of  the  church  since  its  organization.  The  church 
is  proud  of  her  mother,  proud  of  her  noble  ancestry ;  and 
hopes  to  retain,  for  years  to  come,  enough  of  the  Puritan 
spirit  to  keep  her  pure,  and  a  good  supply  of  the  Pilgrim 
spirit  to  keep  her  generous-hearted  and  sweet-tempered. 


—  125— 

* 

MINISTRIES 

OF — 

REV.   WILLIAM   HART, 

—AND — 

REV.  FREDERICK  W.  HOTCHK1SS. 


BY  JAMES  R.  SHEFFIELD,  OF  NEW  YORK  CITY. 


NOTE. — Mr.  James  R.  Sheffield  is  a  great-great-grandson  of  the  Rev.  William 
Hart,  and  great-grandson  of  Rev.  Frederick  William  Hotchkiss.  The  combined 
pastorates  of  these  two  distinguished  men  occupy  a  period  of  one  hundred  and 
eight  years — 1736-1844. 

I  am  indebted  for  the  privilege  of  being  here  to-day  to  two 
circumstances.  One,  the  courtesy  of  Dr.  Chesebrough  and 
your  Committee,  and  the  other,  that  I  was  wise  enough  to 
provide  myself  with  a  great-grandfather  and  a  great-great- 
grandfather, and  to  have  seen  to  it  that  they  studied  for  the 
ministry  and  settled  right  here  in  Old  Saybrook  over  the 
First  Church  of  Christ.  Of  the  good  judgment  of  Dr. 
Chesebrough  and  the  Committee  in  asking  me  here,  there 
may  well  be  some  doubt  in  your  minds ;  but  of  my  good 
judgment  over  two  centuries  ago  in  the  choice  of  grand- 
parents, six  generations  of  God-fearing  and  God-serving 
people  might  well  attest. 

For  one  hundred  and  eight  consecutive  years  these  two 
giants  of  the  faith  served  this  church  and  this  community,- — 
an  instance  rare  in  history,  and  unique,  so  far  as  I  know,  in 
America ;  and  though  the  Recording  Angel  long  ago  com- 
pleted the  record  of  their  earthly  lives,  the  record  of  their 
work  and  influence  is  still  being  written  in  the  history  not 
only  of  Saybrook,  but  of  Church  and  State  wherever  New 
England  character  is  honored  throughout  this  land. 


— 126 — 

It  would  be  impossible  in  the  short  time  allotted  to  me  to 
attempt  any  adequate  description  of  the  men  or  their  relations 
to  this  community.  Their  combined  ministries  were  in  large 
measure  the  history  of  Saybrook  for  over  a  hundred  years, 
and  the  Muse  of  History,  as  she  writes  the  story  of  this  old 
town,  will  never  fail  to  see  across  the  page  the  faces  of 
William  Hart  and  Frederick  Hotchkiss. 

As  I  have  said,  these  two  ministers  served  this  church  for 
an  unbroken  period  of  one  hundred  and  eight  years — Mr. 
Hart  from  1736  to  1784  and  Mr.  Hotchkiss  from  1782  to 
1844.  And  my  being  here  to-day,  as  the  descendant  of  both, 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  Mr.  Hotchkiss  wedded  himself  not 
only  to  the  church  and  to  the  people  of  Mr.  Hart,  but  also  to 
the  very  family  of  Mr.  Hart  by  marrying  his  daughter. 

They  were  both  of  them  remarkable  men.  Broad  in 
scholarship,  learned  in  doctrine,  high  in  principle,  generous 
in  faith  ;  Puritans  of  the  Puritans,  the  product  of  their  time 
and  the  flower  of  their  class.  And  yet  while  treading  for  a 
hundred  years  the  same  wine-press  in  God's  vineyard,  each 
stood  in  wide  contrast  to  the  other.  They  lived  in  different 
periods  of  the  world's  history,  and  each  seemed  exactly  fitted 
to  the  time  in  which  he  lived.  Of  them,  more  truly  than  of 
most  men,  could  it  be  said  that  no  man  is  born  out  of  time. 
They  proved  that  the  golden  age  for  every  man  is  not  yester- 
day or  to-morrow,  but  to-day.  It  is  the  age  in  which  each 
man  lives  ;  not  the  age  in  which  somebody  else  lived.  And 
so  it  was  of  them. 

The  one  lived  in  the  stormiest  period  of  Connecticut's  his- 
tory ;  the  other  in  her  most  peaceful  days ;  and  each  fitted 
exactly  the  temper  of  the  times.  Mr.  Hart  was  essentially  a 
man  of  active,  aggressive  mind  and  temperament.  Of  the 
forty-eight  years  covered  by  his  ministry,  twenty-one  years 
were  years  of  war.  For  thirteen  years  that  old  French  despot, 
Louis  XIV,  reaching  out  for  the  possession  of  Canada  and 
the  Northern  American  colonies,  was  striving  to  divert  atten- 
tion from  his  own  misdeeds  at  home ;  and  for  eight  years 
more  were  fought  the  battles  of  Independence,  in  which 
Connecticut  herself  was  often  the  battlefield  of  the  Revolu- 


—  127— 

. 
tion.     Even  the   churches  were  at  war.     A  new  theory  of 

religious  doctrine  had  sprung  up  in  the  great  awakening  of 
Edwards  and  Whitefield,  and  also  in  the  theological  system 
of  Hopkins,  whose  preaching  and  teaching  threw  a  kind  of 
religious  dynamite  into  the  old  doctrines  of  the  church.  Mr. 
Hart  was  pre  eminently  a  man  for  these  times.  He  was  of 
the  old  school  of  faith  as  well  as  of  manners,  a  Calvinist  and 
a  controversialist,  who  threw  himself  into  all  of  the  struggles 
•of  the  day  with  true  Puritan  spirit.  He  also  put  his  faith  into 
practice  by  a  devout  patriotism  that  sent  three  of  his  sons  to 
•fight  for  independence  in  the  Revolution.  He,  was  a  strenu- 
ous advocate  and  supporter  of  Congregationalism  of  the 
stricter  type,  but  with  it  all  retained  to  the  last  day  of  his 
ministry  the  united  respect  and  affection  of  his  people. 

Mr.  Hotchkiss,  on  the  other  hand,  was  a  man  of  different 
temperament.  He  was  intensely  practical  in  his  theology ; 
and  although  strict  in  his  principles,  he  was  broad  and 
generous  in  his  faith  and  doctrine.  .Entering  upon  his 
ministry  just  as  the  storm  in  the  civil  and  theological  world 
was  subsiding  into  a  calm,  he  found  his  people  longing  for 
rest,  and  he  fully  sympathized  with  their  desires.  Not  lack- 
ing in  courage  or  patriotism,  he  yet  entered  into  no  contro- 
versy and  settled  down  into  his  sphere  of  pastoral  work  in  a 
spirit  of  almost  cloistered  devotion. 

A  diary  of  a  trip  which  he  took  through  New  England  in 
the  early  days  of  this  century,  shows  how  sincerely  he  depre- 
cated all  theological  agitation,  and  is  interesting  as  a  record 
of  the  morals  and  manners  of  the  clergy  of  that  day.  He 
Tvas  a  moderate  Calvinist,  and  did  not  believe  nor  teach  that 
souls  are  to  be  saved  by  doctrine  alone.  A  wonderful  power 
•of  imagination,  united  to  a  voice  splendidly  equipped  for 
public  speaking,  made  his  preaching  remarkable  even  to  the 
last.  His  personal  qualities  endeared  him  to  his  people,  and 
through  his  long  ministry  of  sixty-two  years  he  bore  himself 
with  a  gentle,  kindly  courtesy  that  commanded  respect  and 
engendered  love. 

Unlike  as  these  two  men  were  in  temperament,  there  was  a 
rsimilarity  in  their  aim  that  made  one  the  complement  of  the 


—  128— 

other.  In  a  new  community  it  was  as  essential  to  the  growth* 
of  the  church  in  spiritual  things,  as  it  was  to  the  people  in- 
material  things,  that  its  beginnings  should  be  aggressive. 
The  Church  was  the  cameo  of  the  State ;  the  State  the  intag- 
lio of  the  Church.  But  as  time  went  on,  it  became  still  more 
essential  to  the  proper  development  of  both  the  spiritual  ami 
material  life,  that  it  should  grow  from  war  and  controversy 
into  peace  ;  that  the  people  should  have  time  to  practice  the 
rugged  virtues  that  had  been  taught ;  that  the  powers  trained- 
in  the  church,  the  common  school  and  the  town  meeting 
should  have  opportunity  to  found  a  State ;  that  men  and* 
women  might  learn  that  doctrine  and  dogma  were  not  meant 
simply  for  the  life  to  come,  but  were  intended  to  assist  ii* 
living  the  life  that  now  was  theirs ;  and,  finally,  that  faith  was* 
for  everyday  use,  and  just  as  essential  to  success  in  this 
world  as  it  was  to  happiness  in  the  next. 

It  was  an  extraordinary  opportunity  that  was  given  to- 
these  two  men,  and  splendidly  was  it  used.  No  words  can 
adequately  express  what  the  influence  of  their  lives  andi 
teachings  was.  It  was  the  Puritan  strength,  at  first,  but 
"changed  with  changing  time,  adding  sweetness  to  strength 
and  a  broader  humanity  to  moral  conviction." 

Near  one  of  the  entrances  to  Central  Park,  on  a  gently 
sloping  eminence,  stands  the  bronze  statue  of  the  Pilgrim. 
Of  heroic  size,  dressed  in  the  severe  garb  of  his  sect,  one  arm 
resting  on  the  muzzle  of  his  old  flint-lock  and  looking  into- 
the  distant  west  with  earnest  searching  gaze,  he  stands  the 
very  embodiment,  in  bronze,  of  the  Puritan  spirit.  As  one 
looks  upon  that  splendid  statue,  the  harsh  lines  of  the  metal 
seem  to  fade  away,  and  he  sees,  not  the  embodiment  of  the 
Puritan  spirit  in  bronze,  but  the  real  Puritan  himself  as  he 
stood  guarding  the  liberties  of  his  conscience  and  his  race,, 
and  who,  for  over  two  centuries,  was  the  masterforce  in 
American  civilization.  He  was  the  soldier  of  a  free  church, 
the  builder  of  a  free  state,  and  his  spirit,  like  his  influence,  is 
still  marching  on  into  the  furthermost  corners  of  the  earth. 
And  as  we  look  at  him,  we  are  reminded  that  his  inspiration 
came  from  the  influence  of  the  lives  and  the  teachings  of  men, 


— 129 — 

like  Hart  and  Hotchkiss.  It  was//w«  such  men  that  he  de- 
rived his  notions  of  Church  and  State,  and  it  was  to  them 
that  he  paid  his  homage  of  respect  and  obedience. 

As  we  in  turn  pay  our  homage  to  the  Puritan  spirit,  let  us 
not  forget  the  debt  that  we  owe,  as  well  as  that  Puritan  of 
old,  to  those  two  teachers  and  divines  who,  for  over  one 
hundred  years,  led  these  people  here  in  Old  Saybrook  as  the 
children  of  Israel  were  led  through  the  wilderness  to  the  prom- 
ised land  of  liberty  and  freedom.  And  remembering  this,  we 
should  not  forget  that  we,  too,  as  sons  of  the  Puritans,  should 
stand  as  they  did  for  ideas  and  convictions,  for  liberty  and 
righteousness,  by  holding  the  same  relation  to  our  age  that 
they  held  to  theirs.  No  Church  remains  free;  no  State 
remains  free,  except  it  be  through  the  untiring  efforts  and 
devotion  of  its  members.  And  because  of  what  we  have 
inherited  and  because  we  stand  here  as  sons  of  the  Puritans, 
we  owe  a  far  deeper  duty  to  stand  in  the  same  relation  to  our 
age  that  they  did  to  theirs.  And  when  another  hundred 
years  have  passed,  and  the  political  and  moral  ideals  of  to- 
day have  become  the  commonplace  of  to-morrow,  may  those 
future  generations  have  preserved  for  them  through  our 
efforts,  as  we  have  had  preserved  for  us  through  the  efforts 
•of  those  who  have  gone  before,  a  free  Church,  a  free  State 
and  a  free  People. 


—130— 


REV.  W.  D.  SEXTON'S  LETTER. 


NOTE. — The  Rev.  Wilson  D.  Sexton,  the  sole  surviving  ex-pastor  of  the 
Church  (and  now  the  pastor  of  a  Presbyterian  Church  in  Detroit,  Mich.),  being 
unable  to  be  present,  sent  this  letter  of  greeting,  which  was  read  : 

213  FIELD  AVENUE,  DETROIT,  MICH.,  June  10,  1896. 
To  the  First  Congregational  Church  of  Old  Saybrook  : 

MY  DEAR  FRIENDS — Through  Dr.  Chesebrough,  I  have 
received  a  most  cordial  invitation  from  your  committee  to- 
attend  the  services  in  connection  with  the  two  hundred  and 
fiftieth  anniversary  of  your  church.  If  I  could  follow  the 
impulses  of  my  heart,  I  should  accept  most  gladly  an  invita- 
tion so  kind  and  gracious.  Nothing  would  give  me  greater 
pleasure  than  to  be  present  and  join  with  you  in  these  com- 
memorative services ;  but  other  duties  press  on  me  to  the 
exclusion  of  that  privilege. 

In  this  way,  however,  I  desire  to  send  to  you  my  loving 
greeting  and  sincere  congratulations.  I  rejoice  in  your  noble 
history,  your  conspicuous  place  in  the  eccle>iastical  history  of 
New  England,  and  in  your  steadfast  adherence  to  the  faith  of 
the  Gospel.  I  feel  the  impressiveness  of  my  relation  to  you 
and  to  this  occasion  all  the  more  deeply  when  I  recall  the 
fact  that  I  am  the  only  surviving  ex-pastor.  All  the  other 
brethren,  whose  faithful  service  and  example  as  your  pastors 
were  a  constant  inspiration,  have  gone  to  their  reward.  "  They 
rest  from  their  labors  and  their  works  do  follow  them." 

I  recall  with  happy  appreciation  the  years  of  our  residence 
in  Old  Saybrook.  The  cordial  way  in  which  you  received  us 
to  your  hearts  and  your  homes  ;  the  manifold  kindnesses,  the 
gentle  patience,  the  loving  appreciation  are  still  bright  in  our 
memory.  How  precious  the  memory  of  those  who  have  been 
called  to  the  presence  of  the  Master!  I  need  not  call  the  roll. 


Their  vacant  places  in  your  homes  and  the  sanctuary  impress 
you  more  deeply  than  any  words  of  mine.  I  assure  you  that 
I  shall  never  forget  the  dear  old  church  where  I  spent  the 
first  years  of  my  ministry.  Its  people  were  engraven  on  my 
heart  as  none  other  has  ever  been.  May  the  sweet  memories 
of  the  past  and  the  blessed  hope  of  the  future  so  blend  in  this 
your  anniversary  that  it  may  be  a  happy  halting  place  on 
your  way  to  the  sanctuary  that  never  grows  old,  the  "  house 
not  made  with  hands  eternal  in  the  heavens." 

Yours  in  Christian  love  and  fellowship, 

W.  D.  SEXTON. 


—  132— 


HYMN. 

BY    MRS.    F.    T.    BRADLEY. 

TUNE — Federal  Street. 

Great  God,  how  humble  should  we  be  ! 

This  holy  day  we  celebrate, 

The  ages  we  commemorate, 
Alike  a  moment  are  with  Thee. 

Yet  Thy  peculiar  care  we  claim — 

A  Bethel  in  a  wilderness 

This  church  our  fathers  raised,  to  bless 
The  God  who  called  them  by  His  name. 

Now,  as  of  old,  Thy  Spirit  send 
To  consecrate  this  crowning  hour — 
And  may  a  Pentecostal  power 

Our  lives  to  fuller  service  bend. 

Rock  of  our  Strength  in  weary  land  ! 

Our  fathers'  Inspiration  !  still 

Protect  and  animate  until 
All  men,  confessing  Thee,  shall  .stand. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


JQVT 


1988 
LOANS 


Form  L9-Series  444 


A     000109340     o 


PLEASE  DO  NOT    REMOVE 
THIS   BOOK  CARD 


university  Research  Library 


